Funding roundup – week ending 12/17/10

Seed

TekTrak, developer of phone-locating apps, raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from such notable investors as Cyan and Scott Banister, Kima Ventures, Sergey Grishin, Wasabi Ventures, PBWorks, BCITL Ventures, Barney Pell and Yoni Saban. Like other device-locating apps, TekTrak uses your phone’s GPS to pinpoint its geographic location. Unlike Apple’s MobileMe app, TekTrak can also access the device’s location history and its last known location

Early-stage

Fab.com, formerly Fabulis, a social network targeted at gay men, raised $1.75 million in Series A funding from First Round Capital, The Washington Post Company, Baroda Ventures and Zelkova Ventures. This is added to an earlier $1.25 million in angel financing, for a total of about $3 million raised for the site so far. The site boasts 110,000 members currently, with 5,000 new users joining on a weekly basis.

Stereo Scope, the parent company of Kapitall, an online investing platform, closed $7.3 million in Series A financing from Bendigo Partners, media investor Strauss Zelnick, and ES & Partner Ventures, which is affiliated with FalconView Capital Partners. As part of the deal, Kapitall also converted more than $5.5 million of previously issued promissory notes. Bendigo partner Jarrett Lilien and ES & Partner Ventures’ Roy A. Ellis have joined Kapitall’s board.

RiseSmart, provider of outplacement and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solutions, completed a $3 million equity financing round raised from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Storm Ventures and angel investors. The startup last secured funding in October 2009 in the form of a $4.6 million add-on to a $3 million Series A secured a year earler. Norwest was the primary contributor in the original round, while Storm led the later add-on. Since its launch in 2007, RiseSmart has raised $11.85 million in total.

Shopify, an elegant retail platform that helps businesses build online stores, secured $7 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from FirstMark Capital and Felicis Ventures. The startup was previously bootstrapped. The best way to get an idea of what Shopify does is to look at examples of the final product. Shopify clients include Amnesty International, Tesla Motors, Foo Fighters, and The Indianapolis Star.

Video advertising network SpotXchange raised $12 million in its first-ever round of institutional funding, from H.I.G. Growth Partners. While SpotXchange has been around for several years now, the company says it is profitable despite never raising institutional funding, although the company did raise an undisclosed amount of angel funding in 2008.Founded in 2006, SpotXchange is currently the #3 video ad network in the U.S. and the #1 network in Canada and the UK, according to comScore.

Late-stage

Men’s clothes retailer Bonobos closed an $18.5 million Series C round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Accel Partners. This is the company’s first ever round of institutional funding. Founded in 2007, the company managed to raise nearly $8 million in angel funding alone, and its exponential growth has proven it to be a wise investment.

Soladigm, manufacturer of “dynamic glass” windows that tint on demand to cut down on heat and glare, raised a $30 million Series C round of funding led by DBL Investors and Nano Dimension, with help from GE Energy Financial Services, Khosla Ventures, and Sigma Partners. Soladigm’s dynamic glass can be tinted electronically and can cut HVAC usage by 25% in commercial buildings. Founded in 2009, the Milpitas, Calif.-based company has raised a total of $56.7 million.  The newest round of funding will be used to boost sales and marketing.

Microblogging darling Twitter raised a $200 million round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, valuing the San Francisco startup at $3.7 billion. The round is exactly four times larger than the last round raised by Twitter, back in September 2009, and the company has now raised nearly $400 million from investors. In the past year, users have posted 25 billion tweets and over 100 million new accounts have been created. The company itself has more than doubled in size, from 130 to over 350 employees.

Car sharing company Zipcar raised a $21 million Series G round of funding led by Meritech Capital Partners, which contributed $20 million of the total funding. The rest came from Pinnacle Ventures. The company will  use the funds to finance the growth of its fleet of vehicles and continue its geographic expansion.