Funding Roundup: Fitbit raises $2 million

Meliza Solan Surdi · October 10, 2008 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/466

Be healthy with Fitbit, shop with Savings.com. These are among the startups that raised funds

Here's a roundup of some companies in the mobile, video, digital media, social network, and advertising sectors that raised money this past week. 

 Fitbit raised a healthy $2 million round from True Ventures and SoftTech VC, according to CNET. Fitbit is a wireless miniature device that tracks your movement, calorie intake, and sleep to meet your fitness goals. 


BlackArrow Inc. secured $20 million from Cisco Systems, Inc., Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital, Mayfield Fund and Polaris Venture Partners, according to a press release.The San Mateo, California-based advertisement-technology company provides multiplatform ad-management for viewer-controlled video.


 Oberon Media Inc, a casual gaming company, received $20 million from the Infinity I-China Fund, according to CNet.The casual gaming platform's headquarters are based in New York with office locations around the world. Oberon Media is known as "the world's top provider of game solutions".


 Kineto Wireless Inc. raised $15.5 million from Oak Investment Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Venrock, Seapoint Ventures and InterDigital according to a press release. The California-based company enables mobile operators to harness the power of the Internet to lower service delivery costs while improving service performance.


Intrepid Equity Finance Ltd.  raised a $12 million financing package for SCI Ltd. according to Marketwire. The round came from VentureLink Funds and RBC. SCI is the leading provider of leads management solutions to the North American automotive industry. Intrepid Equity Finance Ltd. specializes in advising and investing in growth companies.

 


 Trilibis Mobile Inc. raised $5.7 million from Altos Ventures and ATA Ventures, according to a press release. The San Mateo, California-based start up is the leading publisher of interactive network applications for mobile phones.

 

Savings.com secured $4 million from US Venture Partners, according to VentureWire. The Santa Barbara, California-based company that lets shoppers search for coupons and discounts on the Web.


Appssavvy Inc., a direct sales team for social-media applications raised $3.1 million from True Ventures, according to a press release. The New York-based start up provides advertisers with targeted media opportunities reaching an audience of more than 50 million unique online consumers enjoying social media applications. 

 


ReverbNation raised $3 million from ETF Venture Funds, Novak Biddle Venture Partners,  and Southern Capitol Ventures, according to a press release. The promotional technology company is a marketing platform for record labels, performing artists, and venues.


Support VatorNews by Donating

Read more from our "Trends and news" series

More episodes

Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

Reverb Nation

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Who We Are

ReverbNation.com is a Music 2.0 company that is responding to the changing music business paradigm.

For Artists
We provide innovative marketing solutions that musicians need to compete, cooperate, and differentiate in an increasingly noisy online environment. Unlike typical "closed" communities, artists use ReverbNation as their home base for approaching marketing and promotion across the Internet as a whole — be it via social networks, blogs, or the artist's homepage. Tools like TunePaks, FanReach, and Widgets give the artist the power to spread their music and information virtually anywhere. Real-time stats then provide a 360-degree view of how the music is spreading, who is listening, and which fans are actually passing it on to their friends and posting it on their pages. For more information on what ReverbNation can do for artists, click here.

For Fans
It starts with the listening experience. Queue up some music, kick back, then browse the site without ever losing the song you are hearing. Here you'll find more tracks (at higher quality) from your favorite artists because they can post unlimited songs at up to 160kbps. Hear something you like? Store tracks to your profile page by "bookmarking" them for later. Use our powerful search function to find the most recent artists (read: fresh tracks) or artists from your local area. You can even search songs by lyrics or by genre. We always keep you in the loop with local show information that is just one click away. Finally, if you are a true Fan, support the artists you love by grabbing their widgets and placing them all over the web, or even join their street team. It's easy, it's fun, and the artists really notice who is helping them. For more information on what ReverbNation can do for fans, click here.

For Venues/Clubs
You need to pack your house. You have no time. We can help. Maintaining a free profile on ReverbNation ensures that when our fans search for local shows, you show up. But it goes beyond that. Use FanReach, our FREE email system, to gather new fans from your homepage or MySpace page, and to keep in touch with your existing list. There is no need to pay $50-$100 per month to send out email. Let us do it for you for free. Did we mention that your show schedule can be automatically placed into your emails, including links to buy tickets? Your show schedule can also be exported to all of your other web pages using our free schedule widget. Paste the widget one time on your other sites and it will be updated automatically when make any changes to your schedule at ReverbNation. For more information on what ReverbNation can do for venues, click here.

For Labels and Managers
Your goal is to promote your entire roster of artists across the digital realm. ReverbNation has the FREE tools to get the music out there and get the fans spreading it for you on MySpace, Facebook, via email, and IM. We track everything that is happening with your Artist's content and report it back to you so that you understand what is working and what isn't. We even offer you the ability to manage all of your artist pages with one universal login, saving you time over other sites. For more info on how we can help you help your Artist's and drive sales, show attendance, and new releases, click here if you are a label, and click here if you are a manager.


WE BELIEVE

Nothing is more important to Artists than the relationship with their Fans. All of an artist's financial success comes down to the strength and breadth of the relationships they have with their fans. It is from those relationships that artists can earn a living selling music, tickets and merchandise. It is our mission to provide the tools artists need to create, nurture, and strengthen fan relationships. We call the total value of these relationships an artist's Band Equity™, and it is our mission to help artists maximize this.

Active Fans are the best promoters of music on the web. Fan attention has become fragmented across the web in a way that mass marketing no longer makes financial sense (see the demise of radio, music TV). Today is the age of social networks. Artists cannot be everywhere they need to be at once, so they need to focus on activating their most rabid fans to promote them in every corner of the web.

A Music Community is more valuable if includes all of the members of the community. We believe that fans, labels, venues, and other folks all deserve a voice in the community if it is going to be representative of the entire music ecosystem. At ReverbNation, we invite all members of the community to take part.
 

SCI

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Automotive Sales Cycle Overview

Every customer response, and the timeliness of that response, makes the difference between a dealership being perceived as mediocre or as a truly great success story in the automotive industry.

SCI’s Torque™ products help automotive clients accelerate the five levers of the sales cycle by:

  • Cost effectively acquiring more customers
  • Maximizing sales to service conversion
  • Improving service spend optimization
  • Improving customer retention
  • Improving next vehicle sales

Torque™ meets the corporate requirements that are critical for success, including:

  • Low-risk implementation
  • Integrated enterprise capability
  • Fast to deploy (fastest in the market)
  • Configurable to unique requirements
  • Low cost of ownership (lowest in the market)
  • Ongoing product innovation and enhancement
  • Strong business case

As the foundation to your Enterprise Retail Process Management™ (eRPM™) strategy, Torque™ provides:

  • Speedy deployment and ROI
  • Correlation of lead and process attributes to customer acquisition rates
  • A product-driven solution with no-build risk and no-maintenance burden
  • A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model that reduces resource requirements
  • Superior architecture and infrastructure
  • Proven scalability
  • Proven results
  • Process performance measurement
  • Modest up-front fees or investment

Torque™ products make the sales and marketing process easier and allow for more rich, flexible and real-time responses to customers. By delivering the dynamic responses vehicle buyers expect from customer-facing dealerships and OEM processes, Torque™ drives the execution and management improvements that can massively improve sales.

Savings

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Pure & Simple

We are 100% dedicated to keeping this site Pure & Simple.  What do we mean by this?

 

Pure:    We do not decide which coupons are the best coupons – our members do.  Our members and our coupon hunters find the best coupons on the net and then the Savings.com community decides which coupons are the best coupons.  If the community uses a coupon a lot and rates it highly it will rise to the top.  If the community does not like a coupon it will die a miserable death.  Ok, that’s being melodramatic, but it will at least fall to the bottom of the list and not be seen very often.  We do not accept payments or any types of incentives from stores to make their coupons rise to the top.  If a merchant wants their coupons and promotional offers to rise to the top, they have to create the best coupons. 

So how do we get paid?  We do get affiliate commissions from some of our merchants for some sales we send their way.  However, our Pure engine does not take this into account when sorting and prioritizing the coupons.  If a member submits a coupon for a merchant that does not pay Savings.com a commission, we still treat this coupon like any other coupon on our site.  If that coupon becomes the most popular coupon on the site it will be the first coupon on the first page ahead of other coupons that do pay us commissions.  By using member ratings and usage as our voting system, we let our members decide which coupons are the best coupons.  This is what we mean by Pure. 

 

Simple:    What good is a community driven site if it is difficult to use?  Instead of creating a forum where our users post traditional threads to talk about coupons, we created a simple search engine and category list so you can quickly and easily find exactly what you’re looking for.  Members can leave comments on our coupons and promotions but we have those comment sections directly on the coupons to keep the site as user-friendly as possible.  You don’t have to search through pages of forums to find a great coupon.  Our goal is to have Savings.com be the first and last place you look to find the best available coupons for whatever it is you’re looking for.  You can type in what you’re looking for, browse categories or browse your favorite stores to quickly see the best coupons as rated by our member community.

 

                             `Pure & Simple.  It’s not just a catch phrase, it’s our boss and it dictates all we do.’

 

If you have any questions or suggestions on how we can make the site better, please contact us.  This site is driven by our members - we’re just the geeky IT guys that make it all work. 

 

Our Mission

Simply put, our mission is to help you save money everyday. Built on best-of-breed technology, we offer the best collection of coupons available online to help you find the best savings opportunities. At Savings.com, you are in control of a vast array of resources to help you find coupons and save money. From big ticket items like desktop computers and jewelry to electronics, toys and gifts - we help you search for the best deals available on the products and services you want. It's that simple.

 

Our History

Savings.com was founded in 2004. Designed out of frustration with the current state of shopping and discount retailers online, we have been determined from the outset to design and build a more comprehensive Internet destination where users like you can find and compare deals and offers in one simple, easy to use format. This is no small task, and we are refining and improving our approach everyday with the great feedback we get from our visitors. We know you don't want to search across numerous websites to find the best coupons and deals for the products and services you want. We are working to solve your frustrations - combining the most popular categories and offers in one simple and easy to use location.

 

Our Team

Located in Santa Barbara, CA, we have built a team of experienced programmers, product specialists and marketers, who are dedicated to building Savings.com into the Internet's premiere savings and discount destination. More importantly, we are working everyday to expand our list of deals and coupons. We are working in partnership with many of the Web's premiere publishers and retailers to bring you the best deals available online from the most recognizable companies and brands you trust.

 

Oberon Media

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Oberon Media is the world's leading multi-platform casual-games company, with expertise in the PC, online, mobile and interactive TV categories.

The Oberon Game Center platform is the industry standard and has been adopted by some of the world's innovative corporations including Microsoft, Comcast, Sprint, Verizon, Electronic Arts, France Telecom and NHN. The platform combines casual-game content, merchandizing and features to fulfill each partner's specific needs.

Oberon Media is unique because we create integrated casual gaming solutions to support your brand and your users.

Trilibis

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Trilibis Mobile was founded in 2002 by Tom Paddon. Before starting Trilibis, Paddon worked in the wireless communications industry for more than 7 years. After leaving QUALCOMM, he leveraged his knowledge of wireless communications to pursue the untapped opportunities of taking both online communities and brick and mortar businesses into the mobile market. In August of 2003, Trilibis launched its first service called peepsnation™ an online and mobile phone community. Available on just three phone models, it was downloaded by over 25,000 users in its first 30 days after launch.

Early on in the development of peepsnation™, it became clear that current technologies available for developing and launching mobile applications were significantly flawed. Intimately familiar with the complexities and fragmentation inherent to the development of mobile applications, Trilibis saw a significant opportunity to improve the way mobile applications are developed and published. The company has since focused on revolutionizing mobile application technology. Before long, Trilibis' SmartPath™ Mobile Publishing Solution was born. With applications running on nearly all mobile platforms, carrier networks and hundreds of mobile handset devices, Trilibis continues to innovate and provide its customers with leading edge solutions, empowering them to generate profitable revenue within the wireless data market.

appssavvy

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

appssavvy is a mobile advertising technology company with the mission of rethinking the delivery and reception of advertising. Focused on activity, appssavvy redefines how brands reach consumers, creates native ad experiences for publishers, and most importantly, improves advertising through data and insights about real-time behavior.

 

Fitbit

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Did I get enough exercise today? How many calories did I burn? Am I getting good quality sleep? How many steps and miles did I walk today? The Fitbit Tracker helps you answer these questions.

BlackArrow

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

We've seen the future, and the future is now for on-demand video programming with dynamic, personalized advertising. In the world of viewer-controlled video, where the consumer controls the play, pause, fast-forward and rewind buttons, BlackArrow provides the answer for a dynamic video ad-management that supports broadband, video-on-demand (VOD) and DVR playout.

One with the ability to reach the right audience with a laser-focused message — across any on-demand platform. And rapid-fire reporting to provide powerful "apples-to-apples" analytics across playout environments, helping you evaluate and optimize brand campaigns in entirely new ways.

BlackArrow is your partner on the path to multiplatform monetization. With the new world order of on-demand video comes a corresponding set of new advertising and revenue opportunities.

Our purpose-built system is agile enough to incorporate evolving everything. Which means we make every effort to future-proof our clients by providing them with an open framework that easily integrates new and next-generation ad types, ad models, media players – and everything in between. Underscore that with an inherent scalability to extend ad-management beyond broadband and VOD into the realm of DVRs, mobile devices and personal media players.

The multiplatform experts. We spend our days focused on solving the new ad-management challenges that keep you up at night. Our approach comes from a combined perspective — we've culled an experienced team of executives from across the advertising, network, cable infrastructure and broadband digital media industries to ensure we've laid our foundation properly.

We're proud of our heritage. BlackArrow has a foundation of innovation and thought leadership born out of the DiMA Group and its ID!A Project — a consortium of leading programmers, agencies, advertisers and operators chartered with identifying new on-demand video ad opportunities.

But, we're not the only ones that think this is a great idea — our investors do, too. We are proud to be backed by a blue-chip roster of strategic backers and leading venture capital firms, including Cisco, Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Corporation, Mayfield Fund and Polaris Venture Partners.

Kineto Wireless

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Kineto Wireless is the key innovator and leading supplier of FMC solutions for mobile operators.

Kineto is a privately held, venture-backed company whose fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solutions are enabling mobile operators around the globe to leverage the tremendous cost and performance advantages of fixed broadband access networks. Kineto’s FMC solutions extend mobile voice, data and IMS service over broadband access networks, thereby enabling mobile operators to harness the power of the Internet to lower service delivery costs while improving service performance. Kineto's FMC solutions are employed by mobile operators and equipment vendors worldwide in dual-mode handset, femtocell, terminal adaptor and softmobile products and services.

THE CHALLENGE The mobile industry has been one of the world’s greatest success stories over the last century.  In less than 30 years, mobile handsets have become a mainstay of daily life for more than 3 billion people around the world.  Nonetheless, the industry's maturation presents fundamental business challenges for mobile operators.

Revenue Growth: As customer additions slow, mobile operators must continually identify new growth opportunities, as well as hold onto existing subscribers.  Without doubt, increasing mobile service use at home and office represents one of the largest growth opportunities for mobile operators. However, despite high interest from subscribers in wanting to use their mobile phone as their primary phone, the cost and performance challenges of mobile services have prevented operators from being able to capitalize on this tremendous opportunity.

Cost Control: With mobile data usage continuing its rapid climb, mobile operators are beginning to feel the strain on their macro networks.  In addition, with aggressive flat rate pricing for data services becoming the industry norm, the capital cost to add the needed capacity to their networks is no longer being offset by expected revenues