Funding roundup - week ending 10/29/10

Appcelerator, Appmakr, BirchBox, Buddy Media, Kiip, Nomadesk, Spotlight, TxVIA, Zuberance

From the seed-stage to the late-stage, here are the most notable startup companies to raise new funding in the past week.

Appcelerator, an open source application development platform, secured a $9 million Series B round, led by Sierra Ventures with participation from eBay and existing investors Storm Ventures and Larry Augustin. As part of the deal, Appcelerator signed a mobile partner program agreement with PayPal, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, to offer mobile transaction software Titanium+Commerce to over eight million merchants in the first half of 2011. Founded in 2007, the Mountain View, CA-startup has raised $15.2 million to date.

No-coding-skills-required iPhone app developer AppMakr raised $1 million in seed funding from a number of venture capitalists and angel investors, including Mitch Kapor, Bill Lee, Bill Tai and George Zachary of Charles River Ventures, Rich Chen, Brian McClendon, Jeremie Berrebi and Xavier Niel of Kima Ventures, Warren Hellman, Ben Narasin of TriplePoint Ventures, Pietro Dova, Sean Glass, Chris Redlitz and Peter Boboff of Transmedia Capital. Appmakr has developed apps for PBS, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review and U.S. Congress.

Beauty samples delivery service BirchBox raised a $1.4 million seed round, led by First Round Capital and Accel Partners with participation from investors Sam Lessin, Dave Morin, Michael Dearing, Kirsten Green, and Gary Vaynerchuk. The New York City startup has amassed 2,000 subscribers since launching in September. Subscribers pay $10/month or $110/year in exchange for delivered boxes of premium beauty samples.

Facebook marketing company Buddy Media tacked on an additional $5 million to last week’s already-impressive $23 million Series C round. The new money is an all-cash investment from WPP Digital, the acquisition- and investment-making arm of WPP, a global marketing and communications service. As part of the deal WPP clients will gain premium access to Buddy Media, including one year of training on the platform and the promise of specially-tailored product developments. Buddy Media has raised over $38 million to date.

Kiip, a mobile gaming ad startup, raised a $300,000 round of seed funding from True Ventures, SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump, CMO Rohan Oza of Vitamin Water, PopChips CEO Keith Belling, Doug Chertok and Paige Craig. Co-founder Courtney Guertin has been named CTO and co-founder Amadeus Demarzi has been made design director. Pronounced like "keep," Kiip already has five game publisher partnerships and  2 million monthly active users.

Belgian cloud computing company Nomadesk raised a $7 million Series B round, led by new investor BAMS Angel Fund with participation from existing shareholder Gimv. Founded in 2004 as Aventiv, Nomadesk provides cloud-based data sharing, synchronization, and storage software for $15 a month per Team Fileserver. Nomadesk has raised almost $12 million to date.

Spotlight, a Web-based ticket management solution, secured a $2.5 million Series A round, led by Point Judith Capital with participation from sports television executive Brian Bedol. A ticketing company for the enterprise, Spotlight partners with leagues, teams, companies, ticket aggregators like Stubhub and Ticket Liquidator, event providers, and brokers. Its Web-based Software-as-a-Service helps clients keep track of their tickets, suites and events.

TxVia, a payment processing company, raised a $27.5 million Series D round, led by Oak Investment Partners with participation from previous investors Bain Capital Ventures, Espirito Santo Ventures, and Village Ventures. The New York startup has raised $55.4 million since its founding in 2006.

Social marketing platform Zuberance raised an $8 million Series B round, led by Canaan Partners with participation from existing investors Emergence Capital Partners and Correlation Ventures. The San Carlos, Calif.-based startup focuses on generating word-of-mouth advertising through brand advocacy, reviews and recommendations from repeat consumers or business buyers. Zuberance helps businesses identify brand advocates.