March 25, 2009
What you need to know - Tuesday 11/23/2010
MyThings raised $6M; Better Advertising Product $9.5M; Stoke $16M; Welocalize $34M
Rumors abound about a potential buy out of Nuance Communications, a voice technology company, by Apple. The rumors began after comments were made by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak during an interview with TVDeck.
JiWire, a mobile-based advertising company has acquired NearbyNow. Nearby Now is a location-based mobile shopping platform. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Phrases has knocked out FarmVille as the most popular Facebook app. The app which allows users to post random sayings to their friend feed, is not likely to stay top dog for long, since it pulled access for U.S. based users. FarmVille had been in the top spot since August 2009.
More than half of us will be checking our email over the holidays, according to a study by Xobni. Xobni is an email software company. 59% of U.S. adults, who have a job, will check their work email over holidays and 28% are expected to do so multiple times.
MyThings, a company that provides personalised retargeting services, raised $6 million in C series of funding. The round was led by T-Venture, and Deutsche Telekom’s venture capital arm. Other investors include Accel Partners, Carmel Ventures, Dot Corp and GP Bullhound.
Qype, a local business, has raised 6.5 million euros. Qype has raised 3.5 million euros from Vodafone Ventures and a further 3.0 million euros from Advent Venture Partners, Partech International and Wellington Partners combined. Qype is currently the largest user-generated local review site in Europe.
Welocalize, a translation service, has raised $34M. The service can currently translate websites and marketing into over 100 languages.
Better Advertising Product raised $9.5M for behavioral advertising. The round was led investor Warburg Pincus.
Stoke, a company that re-routed mobile data usage to the web, raised $16 million. This brings the total amount that Stoke has raised more than $85 million.
Gifts.com and Hunch are teaming up this year to provide you with easier holiday shopping. By creating custom tatse profiles the two sites will make gift recommendations.
Badgeville raised $2.5 million. The site, which wants to bring the idea of check-in to websites, raised funds from eBay COO Maynard Webb, Panatir founder Joe Lonsdale, and several senior executives from PayPal, Chegg, Shopping.com, DrugStore.com, and Warner Music, in its A series of funding.
Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs
MyThings
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
MyThings is for people with too much stuff. Or, conversely, people who
don’t have that much, but really like what they own. We’re a free
service that helps you organize your possessions online, whether that’s
electronics, jewelry, antiques, or your vast collection of Smurfs action
figures. We also provide services like valuation, accessories, manuals, repair
info, recycling, donation, a one-click sell-on-eBay feature, and an easy way to
report to Trace, a global database of lost or
stolen goods.
MyThings actually grew out of Trace, which helps law enforcement ensure nobody is selling or buying stolen items. To help you avoid adding your prized possessions to Trace, MyThings has a rather intense privacy policy. We require no personal information aside from an email address (which we don’t reveal) to make sure you’re as anonymous as you want to be.
Of course, just because you’re anonymous doesn’t mean you can’t be friendly. Items you've added can be private and completely invisible or public and open to the community. The MyThings community is the heart of the site, and is full of lovely people who are passionate about the things they own and are there to share their stories. MyThings members connect with each other about the things they love most, comparing their experiences with digital cameras and appliances, or auction houses and antiques.
NearbyNow - Google for Shopping Malls
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
NearbyNow has created a customer service that allows you to search all products and sales in a shopping mall from your mobile phone or the Internet.Zynga
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Zynga is the largest social gaming company with 8.5 million daily users and 45 million monthly users. Zynga’s games are available on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Yahoo! and the iPhone, and include Texas Hold’Em Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Vampires, Street Racing, Scramble and Word Twist. The company is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, IVP, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Pilot Group, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel. Zynga is headquartered at the Chip Factory in San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.zynga.com.
Xobni Corporation
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Xobni offers a new way to organize and search your Outlook email. Xobni creates profiles for each person that emails you. These profiles contain relationship statistics, contact information, social connections, threaded conversations, and shared attachments. Our users tell us that Xobni makes your inbox work the way your mind does.Related News
September 2, 2009