Follow The Money: 10 Recent Tech VC Investments To Watch In April
Dollars For Tech
The April roundup of Follow The Money demonstrates that lots of venture capital dollars are currently available to firms that can demonstrate innovative approaches to solving business problems through advanced technologies. This month's list features companies that are competing in a variety of key industry sectors, including cloud-based service management, HTML5, infrastructure-as-a-service and video conferencing.
3scale
Headquarters: San Francisco and Barcelona
CEO: Steven Willmott
New Funding: $4.2 Million
Round: Undisclosed
Backers: Javelin Venture Partners, Costanoa Venture Capital
Founded in 2007, 3scale provides a SaaS API Management platform and related infrastructure designed to support the operation and management of APIs that can be used by external partners. The company, which currently claims approximately 200 customers, intends to use the investment to extend its service line, as well as its geographical reach.
Booker
Headquarters: New York
CEO: Josh McCarter
New Funding: $27.5 Million
Round: B
Backers: Bain Capital Ventures
Booker, formerly known as GramercyOne, provides cloud-based service management on a web-based platform for small-to-medium businesses. The platform also captures purchase cycle and customer history data, including scheduling, point of sale, CRM, employee management, marketing and loyalty programs. The company claims a customer base of more than 60,000 service professionals in several key verticals. The company recently announced the launch of its mobile and tablet apps on Apple iOS and Android devices.
Gizmox
Headquarters: Cambridge, Mass.
CEO: Eugene Kuznetsov
New Funding: $7.5 Million
Round: Undisclosed
Backers: Atlas Venture
Gizmox has developed an enterprise-grade HTML5 platform for user interfaces to be used in secure mobile and cloud services. As part of the same announcement, the company named Eugene Kuznetsov as its new CEO, and appointed Jeff Fagnan and Christopher Lynch of Atlas Venture to its board of directors.
Green Cloud
Headquarters: Greenville, S.C.
CEO: Shaler P. Houser
New Funding: $5.6 Million
Round: C
Backers: Millry Corp., an undisclosed new strategic investor and existing shareholders
Green Cloud Technologies is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service startup serving small and midsize businesses through an indirect sales strategy. Founded by a former Synnex executive, the company's partner base includes managed service providers, telecom distributors, integrators and consultants. The company plans to use the additional capital for data center enhancements and to escalate its sales and marketing efforts, and also to upgrade its data center. In addition, the startup is planning to expand into several new regions.
Kik
Headquarters: Waterloo, Ontario
CEO: Ted Livingston
New Funding: $19.5 Million
Round: B
Backers: Foundation Capital, RRE Ventures, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures
Now in its fourth year, Kik offers a smartphone messenger product that is designed to interoperate with a variety of platforms, including iPhone, Android and Microsoft. The company, which rolled out a new version earlier this month, reports a user base of more than 50 million. The additional capital is intended to be used for a variety of initiatives, including technology enhancements and increased marketing support.
MuleSoft
Headquarters: San Francisco
CEO: Greg Schott
New Funding: $37 Million
Round: Undisclosed
Backers: NEA, salesforce.com, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAP Ventures, Bay Partners
MuleSoft produces an open-source-based integration platform for connecting SaaS and enterprise applications in the cloud and on-premises without the need for custom point-to-point code. The additional funding is intended to support market penetration as well as technology enhancements. The product currently integrates with salesforce.com, NetSuite, Workday, Intuit and Box.
Optimizely
Headquarters: San Francisco
CEO: Dan Siroker
New Funding: $28 Million
Round: Undisclosed
Backers: Benchmark Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, InterWest Partners, Google Ventures
Optimizely was founded in 2008 by two former Google product managers. The company provides testing functionality to optimize web pages for sign-ups, downloads, purchases, or similar criteria. Launched in October 2010, the company became cash-flow-positive within one year, and claims an annual growth rate of more than 400 percent.
RackWare
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
CEO: Sash Sunkara
New Funding: $1.8 Million
Round: A
Backers: Undisclosed
After coming out of stealth mode last year, RackWare comes to the table with a cloud-management module designed to help customers scale upward or downward across the public cloud, the private cloud, or in hybrid environments. Disaster-recovery capabilities are also offered.
Vidyo
Headquarters: Hackensack, N.J.
CEO: Ofer Shapiro
New Funding: $17.1 Million
Round: Undisclosed
Backers: Triangle Peak Partners, inside investors and undisclosed new investors
Vidyo enables HD multipoint videoconferences on a range of devices, including tablets and smartphones, which interoperate with legacy H.323 and SIP endpoints, telepresence solutions and cloud-based video conferencing. In addition, the company's solution-provider platform supports H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC). Vidyo will use this funding to further extend sales and marketing. The company reported 68 percent year-over-year billings growth last year.
Zerto
Headquarters: Boston and Herzliya, Israel
CEO: Ziv Kedem
New Funding: $13 Million
Round: C
Backers: RTP Ventures, an affiliate of ru-Net Holdings, Battery Ventures, Greylock IL, U.S. Venture Partners
Zerto designs and markets hypervisor-based, disaster-recovery and replication software for virtualized and cloud environments. The company intends to use the latest investment to accelerate its go-to-market strategy, while at the same time expanding its teams and sales and marketing operations. Founded in 2009, Zerto has raised $21.2 million in previous rounds.