Funding roundup - week ending 07/02/10

Two mobile geo-location startups, Foursquare and Geodelic, raise big money

Last week's roundup was clearly dominated by one sector growing by leaps and bounds: social gaming. The news on that front has not slowed down, as evidenced by Disney's just-announced acquisition of iPhone app developer Tapulous, but this week's two big funding winners work in a slightly different area: geo-location.

Foursquare, one of the most popular mobile location-based apps, raised $20 million with a $95 million pre-money valuation in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. (Go here to take a closer look at the deal terms.) Last spring, both Facebook and Yahoo had approached Foursquare with the prospects of a buyout, but now it's clear that the company wants to continue developing their own product with their own money and motivations.

The New York-based geo-location startup says it has 1.8 million registered users, with 15,000 new ones added each day.

And Geodelic, another location-aware mobile app developer, raised $7 million in a Series B round led by MK Capital, with participation from previous backers Clearstone Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures. The Santa Monica, CA-based company has now raised over $10 million. Geodelic, available for Android and iPhone, lets users read reviews, make reservations, and get directions to businesses they discover through the app.

Here are a bunch of other notable technology fundraisers from the past week:

Advertising startup Chango completed a $1.4 million Series A financing round with contributions from new investors Metamorphic Ventures and Geoff Judge. The Toronto-based platform targets display ads based on a person's search history.

GroupSpaces, a management platform for real-world groups and communities, raised a $1.3 million round led by Index Ventures and angel investors including Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Simon Levene, Meagan Marks, Ariel Poler and Quincy Smith of CODE Advisors. The London-based company's online platform, perfect for clubs, hobby groups, and virtually any kind of association, is getting set to take off internationally.

Kontagent, a viral analytics platform for social network application developers, raised over $4 million in a funding round by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with participation from Larry Braitman, co-founder of FlyCast and Adify. Since its founding in 2007, the San Francisco-based company has raised a total of $6 million. Kontagent is actively hiring to expand its engineering, sales and marketing teams in San Francisco and Toronto.

ModCloth, an indie and vintage clothing online retailer, raised a $19.8 million Series B round led by Accel Partners, with participation from existing investors Floodgate and First Round Capital. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company, which specializes in vintage-inspired clothing from indie designers, has been profitable since 2009.

Reevoo, an online database for customer reviews, raised a Series B round of funding (amount undisclosed) from existing investors Eden Ventures, Banexi Ventures, and angel Andrew Phillipps. The London-based startup boasts over 1 million customer reviews displayed over 60 million times a month. Reevoo is looking to add social features to its service as it starts expanding across Europe.

Seeing Interactive, builder of Web-based software to help local newspapers earn more advertising dollars, raised a $1 million seed round from Baseline Ventures, Lerer Ventures, FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit, Alex Moore, and Delicious founder Joshua Schachter. The Y combinator startup launched last March and provides three products--AdForge, Xarket, and Seeing Cars--to help local newspapers integrate their money-making methods with the Web.

SmallRivers, developer of a Web app called Paper.li that turns your Twitter stream into a daily newspaper, raised more cash (amount undisclosed) for the first time since securing $1 million in seed funding in 2008. The Switzerland-based startups's Paper.li, which alpha launched last April, creates personalized virtual newspapers based on any Twitter user, list, or tag.

Vopium, a mobile VoIP provider, raised $16.5 million from Raghuvinder Kataria, one of the earliest investors in Bharti Airtel, itself one of the largest telecom companies in the world. The Denmark-based Skype rival is currently focusing on delivering cheap and low-rate international mobile calls with its free mobile app that works on over 900 different handsets.