Seed funding
Managed by Q, a smart office cleaning and management service, has closed a $1.65 million seed round. The funding, from names such as RRE Ventures and Haystack’s Semil Shah, will help the company, which is run out of Manhattan’s Chinatown, to expand its combined real-and-virtual offering to businesses. Managed by Q installs a free iPad at clients’ offices, which monitors and alerts cleaning tasks and deliveries, and provides an a la carte menu of services depending on the needs of a particular space. ““The first step to a good office space is a clean space, so that’s where start,” co-founder Saman Rahmanian told TechCrunch. “It’s a great starting point for us because it’s a recurring service we have with our customers, and the trust we build by cleaning up after them will transfer to us taking care of more things for that space.”
Series A
San Diego’s Cue, a startup which allows people to track medical data from their own home, has raised $7.5 million in a round led by nearby SherpaVentures. The round, which includes participation from Immortalena, an earlier angel investor in the firm, will ignite Cue’s ‘health-in-a-box’ concept. The box allows people to take blood, saliva or nasal swabs, for example, to determine the effects that certain foods or activities are having on their health, without the need to visit a physician. “Cue’s unique design to measure and track deep, molecular data enhances the space by providing a layer of data that complements data streams from wearable activity trackers and improves access to information that can help people take action to manage their wellness,” said Ayub Khattak, CEO and founder, Cue.
Series B
CipherCloud brings its total funding to $80 million, with a $50 million Series B round today. The huge figure, led by respected investors Andreessen Horowitz, shows how the cloud security firm has leapt since its 2010 inception. CipherCloud’s solutions encompass the gamut of cloud security offerings, including data loss prevention and tokenization.
Silicon Valley’s startup kings are, mostly, no fans of formalwear. The same can be said for Evan Stites-Clayton and Walker Williams, co-founders of Teespring – except most can’t say they’ve just secured $35 million on their love of custom t-shirts. The Providence, RI pair started Teespring, which allows customers to make well-made, custom tees, in 2011. Fewer than four years in, this latest round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, brings Teespring’s total investment up to $56.9 million. The company has sold six million shirts already this year, and plans to use this latest cash injection to grow into 2015.
Series C
Kik Interactive Inc, a Waterloo, Ontario maker of the Kik chat network, has announced its acquisition of GIF messenger Relay, and a Series C funding round worth $38.3 million. The company, which has secured over 185 million users to date, will use the money to invest in product development, and to enhance its business development teams.