By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor,
Recent pessimism about the market for tech IPOs may have been quieted this week with Angie’s List’s successful debut in the public markets and Yelp’s filing. And don’t forget about Groupon, which has traded at a healthy clip after significant questions about its business model in the lead-up to its recent IPO. The week also saw a significant number of seed and Series A funding announcements—defying in many respects pundits who have recently sounded an alarm about a dearth of early-stage funding in technology. There are numerous perspectives to the funding issue, but suffice it to say that the tech startup sector continues to shine brightly in the midst of a painfully long global economic downturn.
StartUp Beat this week featured Q&As with niche travel online network BSFG Travel, mobile BI provider MeLLmo, and Parse, which gives mobile app developers a turn-key backend infrastructure. We also featured a Pitch from Tokii co-founder and CEO Karla Stephens-Tolstoy about creating an ‘online relationship management’ platform—an interesting new online segment that has spawned several new startups recently.
Seed and Series A funding this week:
UserVoice – $1 million
Spotzot – $2.2 million
Braintree – $34 million
Swag Of The Month – $100K
ServiceMesh – $15 million
6Wunderkinder – $4.2 million
Rethink Books – $2 million
Trippy – $1.75 million
Animoca – Undisclosed
Ginzametrics – $1.3 million
Boundary – $4 million
Salorix – $3.5 million
Meridian – $1 million
Wrapp – $5.5 million
SalesVu – $600K
