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Fresh Capital

By Kelly Faircloth 5/16 3:30pm

Fresh Capital

They'll also STING YOUR FACE OFF. (Photo: Flickr, Garrett Rooney)

You Jelly? Jack Dorsey, Al Gore, Bono Invest in Biz Stone’s Stealth Startup

Biz Stone’s mysterious new startup, Jelly, has just closed a Series A.

An announcement on the company’s Tumblr didn’t disclose the total amount raise, but revealed that Spark Capital raised the round, with SV Angel piling on, as well.

Also participating are several individual investors who, we can only assume, were rounded up in the parking lot of last year’s TED conference: Jack Dorsey, Bono, Al Gore, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Where Good Ideas Come From author Steven Johnson, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, House (?!) director Greg Yaitanes, and Afghan entrepreneur Roya Mahboob. Read More

By Jessica Roy 4/30 2:23pm

Fresh Capital

Dwolla founder Ben Milne. (Photo: Twitter)

Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz and Others, Will Be Expanding to San Francisco

Dwolla*, the Des Moines-based payment platform that has a strong presence in NYC, announced today that it has received a $16.5 million Series C investment led by venture capital behemoth Andreessen Horowitz, with contributions from NYC firms Thrive Capital* and Union Square Ventures. The fresh funding will allow Dwolla to double its staff of 40 to 80 and open a third office in San Francisco, according to The Next Web. Andreessen partner Scott Weiss will be joining Dwolla’s board. Read More

By Jessica Roy 4/16 1:56pm

Fresh Capital

(Screenshot: HeTexted.com)

Dating Q&A Site HeTexted Raising $500,000 Seed Round

We could all use a little dating advice sometimes, but what if that advice comes from thousands of Internet strangers? HeTexted, a dating Q&A service that went viral last October, is a relationship-themed Quora-type site that allows women to submit screenshots of text messages they’ve received from men and lets anonymous users vote on whether or not he’s into them. Users can also ask a smattering of “bros” relationship questions. It’s crowdsourced dating advice for the digital age, even if the texts are often kind of depressing. Read More

By Jessica Roy 4/11 8:31am

Fresh Capital

(Photo: Sound Ctrl)

Foursquare Dodges a Potential Down Round, Grabs $41M In Loans and Convertible Debt

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about Foursquare, the New York-based check-in and recommendations app that was the breakout darling of SXSW 2009.

Former Square COO Keith Rabois recently engaged in a very public dustup with Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley on Twitter, tweeting that only a “Hail Mary Bebo-style acquisition will bail you out.” In January, data and research company PrivCo predicted that the startup will fail by the end of the year, eventually surrendering to an acquisition price of no more than $50 million (though the analysis didn’t account for mobile traffic). In November of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that investors were “cooling” on Foursquare. “The company claims more than 25 million registered users, but only about 8 million of them use the app at least once a month,” it wrote. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 1/30 6:25pm

Fresh Capital

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Lightbank Brings That Groupon Guap to New York City with Office In the Flatiron

Conventional wisdom has it that ecommerce companies are losing favor almost as quickly as Series A rounds and that New York City investors weigh too heavily toward early stage startups. So we were surprised to hear that Lightbank, a Chicago-based venture capital firm, is eager to buck all three trends.

“Oh god, so I’m a rebel?” Lightbank principal Vicki Levine told Betabeat over the phone. Ms. Levine will be heading up a new office the firm is opening in the Flatiron District in order to invest in Series A rounds of East Coast startups in ecommerce, as well as health and media. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 1/09 11:30am

Fresh Capital

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Eric Hippeau on Lerer Ventures’ New Hires and Why BuzzFeed Promises ‘VC-Like Returns’

When we last spoke with Eric Hippeau, the Huffington Post mafioso was discussing Lerer Ventures’ new $36 million fund. Today, the early-stage investment firm is announcing two new hires to help it manage and grow its considerable portfolio.

Max Stoller, a recent NYU graduate whose hackathon apps we’ve covered in the past, will be joining Lerer Ventures as an analyst. Mr. Stoller, a HackNY veteran, worked as an engineer at Hyperpublic–a company founded by LV managing director Jordan Cooper and sold to Groupon–as well as on the platform team at Foursquare, both while in school. And, yes, if that makes you  wonder, you probably did college wrong. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 12/12/12 10:40am

Fresh Capital

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Snapchat, the So-Called Sexting App, Reportedly Raising $8 M. From Investors Who Backed Instagram

Looks like we aren’t the only ones obsessed with Snapchat, the app that lets you share photos with a self-destruct button of 10 seconds or less. Over at GigaOm, Om Malik reports that Snapchat is rumored to be raising an $8 million round from Benchmark Capital “at a pretty generous pre-money valuation.” He says the app, which was launched by two Stanford students who met at a frat, is rumored to have a valuation “close to $50 million.” Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 12/11/12 8:49am

Fresh Capital

Some sweet lamps you got there.

Growing Like a Weed, One King’s Lane Raises $50 Million Series D

The ecommerce company One Kings Lane has just raised a $50 million Series D, led by Institutional Ventures Partners and with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Greylock Partners, Tiger Global Management and Scripps Networks Interactive. While headquartered in San Francisco, the company has large New York office handling much of its merch and marketing.

The company certainly seems to be in a period of rapid growth. When Betabeat visited the New York outpost back in August, desks were crammed into every spare inch of space and contractors were already preparing the space next door for expansion. Read More