Series A
DigitalOcean, which leverages a cloud platform for handling infrastructure, has secured $37.2 million in a Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which saw participation from previous investors CrunchFund and IA Ventures. Over the last 15 months, the New York-based company has deployed more than 1 million virtual servers. Last February, Gartner forecasted the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market would swell to $9 billion in 2013.
Canary, which offers a smart home security device, has raised a $10 million Series A funding round. Khosla Ventures, Bobby Yazdani, and some of the company seed investors — like Two Sigma Ventures — invested in the round. The New York City-based company had previously raised a $1.2 million round and $2 million on Indiegogo; Canary holds the title of “Most successful campaign ever” on the crowdfunding platform, as the company pre-sold 10,000 of its devices inside a month. According to MarketsandMarkets, the smart homes market is anticipated to drive revenues at $51.77 billion by 2020.
Series B
Automated facial expression recognition and analysis company Emotient has finished a $6 million Series B round. Handbag, LLC led the investment, with Intel Capital contributing. In total, backing behind the San Diego company comes to $8 million.
Series D
New York-based Payoneer, which provides online payment solutions, has finished a $25 million Series D funding. Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC, led the round, which saw contributions from Carmel Ventures, Vintage Venture Partners and Greylock IL. Payoneer is profitable and leverages a four-year revenue CAGR of more than 65 percent, according to a press release.
Funding
Boxever, which provides big data and personalization solutions to players in the travel industry, has revealed a $6 million funding round led by Polaris Partners. Frontline Ventures contributed to the investment. The Dublin company has also been chosen to serve Singapore-based carrier Tigerair. “Their deep travel domain expertise coupled with their outstanding engineering and data science capabilities is solving a huge unmet need in a $3.4 trillion industry,” said Noel Ruane of Polaris Partners in a company blog post.
Founder, editor and CEO of Business Insider Henry Blodget has confirmed news the media outlet has secured $12 million in a post on its website. Previous backers Jeff Bezos, IVP, RRE and Gordon Crovitz — former publisher of The Wall Street Journal — supplied the money. Funding will be put towards making “Business Insider even more helpful and convenient” for readers; the New York-based company looks to launch a Europe edition out of the United Kingdom.
TownSquared, a social platform for local businesses, has bagged more than $5 million in funding, according to a Form D the San Francisco-based company filed with the SEC. Investors weren’t disclosed. TownSquared can help users stay posted on crime and other goings-on in their neighborhoods, set up local activities and engage with other businesses.
New York’s OnDeck, which provides loans to small businesses, has received a $77 million investment led by Tiger Global. OnDeck offers loans online amounting to no more than $250,000 to “brick-and-mortar businesses like hair salons and doctor’s offices,” according to a press release. The company’s investors include First Round Capital, SAP Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners and Google Ventures. In total, equity funding for OnDeck comes to $180 million while debt financing exceeds $300 million.
M&A
CloudPress, a Seattle-based marketing platform, has been picked up by media behemoth News Corp. “We’ll be winding down CloudPress in the next few weeks,” said an announcement on CloudPress’ site.
Stockholm-based music streaming platform Spotify will acquire Somerville, Massachusetts “music intelligence company” The Echo Nest. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The move will fortify Spotify’s prowess in the realm of music discovery, according to Spotify.
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo continues on its acquisition tear with Vizify, a Portland, Oregon social media-based biography builder. Deal terms were not disclosed. In joining Yahoo, “we will be sunsetting the Vizify service,” said an announcement on Vizify’s website.