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Million Dwolla Baby

By Nitasha Tiku 4/16/12 9:39am

Million Dwolla Baby

Mr. Taub

Dwolla Prepares to Launch a New York City Office By Poaching Aviary’s Alex Taub

Dang, looks like we missed a couple prime candidate from our spring Poachables list.

Alex Taub, head of business development and partnerships at Aviary–and a familiar face to anyone in the New York startup scene–just announced that he will be starting a new post in a similar role at Dwolla, the online payments company that has investors swooning for its ability to reduce costly credit card interchange fees. After much speculation, Dwolla finally announced a $5 million round in February led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Thrive Capital* and Marc Ecko of Artists & Instigators.

The fact that Mr. Taub will be setting up a Dwolla outpost right here in New York City should settle any feathers ruffled over Silicon Prairie poaching etiquette. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 2/07/12 12:39pm

Million Dwolla Baby

Mr. Milne.

Dwolla Announces Funding Led by Union Square Ventures

Power to the prairie! That Union Square Ventures-led funding we reported on for investor darling Dwolla—the startup of the 700 name spreadsheet—is indeed happening. (Albeit for $5 million instead of the $10 million we expected.) Village Ventures, Thrive Capital, Marc Ecko of Artists & Instigators and angel investor Paige Craig participated.

Dwolla is doing a million dollars a day in transactions, CEO Ben Milne said in the announcement, and will use the money to build a payments network (a la Visa) that will use the power of the Internet to circumvent normal electronic payment processing fees. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 1/20/12 12:24pm

Million Dwolla Baby

dwolla hoodie

Union Square Ventures Leading Series B in Iowa-Based Dwolla for About $10 M.

Des Moines-based payments provider Dwolla, which enables seamless online payments for a quarter per transaction, has been a simmering hot new thing for a while. But recently the startup has had a flush of attention and VCs have been falling all over themselves to book flights to Iowa and get in on the company’s next round. Speaking of which, multiple sources have confirmed to Betabeat that Dwolla’s getting close to announcing a series B led by New York’s Union Square Ventures in the neighborhood of $10 million.

With its Shapeways investment, the startup’s Dutch founders move to New York and USV took out life insurance policies in case they got squished by taxis. But Dwolla leaving Des Moines—it’s only a three-hour flight, and VCs seem to be more than happy to make the schlep. Read More