Today’s early-stage startup funding and acquisitions news:
Crowdfunding
Upstart, a crowdfunding site for funding the startup ambitions of recent college grads, has closed a $5.9 million Series A round from some very high-profile investors that include Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, IronPort cofounder Scott Bannister, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. The startup was founded last February by former Google Enterprise president Dave Girouard. More on the funding, from GigaOm.
Commerce
Hamburg-based Kreditech has raised a significant round of funding for its big data-based credit scoring system. The total funding was somewhere around $3.5 million, and came from the Samwer Brothers’ (founders of Germany’s Rocket Internet) capital fund, according to TechCrunch. The company launched in January 2012 and previously raised $4 million in Seed funding.
Education
Student portfolio platform Seelio has bolstered its growth prospects with $900K in Seed funding. Investors in the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based startup include First Step Fund, Michigan PreSeed Fund and Angel investors. Seelio was founded in 2011 by University of Michigan graduates and provides a set of tools that allow soon-to-graduate college students to sell themselves to potential employers. Here’s more about the funding, from TechCrunch.
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