Venture
The online marketplace for freelance professionals, Elance-oDesk, has raised its first round of financing since being formed in a merger last December in what is widely believed to be a final private cash infusion before a public offering. The $30 million round was led by Benchmark Capital, with additional participation coming from returning backers like New Enterprise Associates, FirstMark Capital, Sigma West, Stripes Group, and T. Rowe Price. The service boasts 9.3 million freelancers from around the world and 2.7 million job postings per year while continuing to operate as two distinct websites.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is continuing its push into digital real estate platform, this time turning its attention to India. The media conglomerate will reportedly pay $30 million to acquire a 25% stake in Elara, a Singapore-based company that runs PropTiger.com, an Indian real estate platform. “India has more than 270 million Internet users and the number is growing exponentially. There is no doubt that the development of digital is empowering individuals and transforming industries, and we are extremely enthusiastic about the potential of PropTiger.com as the country fulfils its digital destiny,” said Newscorp CEO Robert Thomson through a press release on the company’s website. In September, News Corp spent $950 million to acquire Move, Inc., the US-based owner and operator of realtor.com.
Series A
Kensho, a Cambridge, Mass.-based advanced but relatively low cost financial analytics platform, has raised a $15 million Series A. The round was led by Goldman Sachs. Kensho employs semantic search technology to give data-driven answers to users who ask market-related questions in plain English. Investors in Kensho’s $10 million Seed round include Google Ventures, Accel Partners, and New Enterprise Associates.
Series B
New York-based photo sharing application Memoir has secured a $5.5 million Series B led by Redpoint Ventures, which was joined by repeat investors like Thrive Capital, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and BoxGroup, among others. Memoir is a graduate of a 2011 TechStars program. “Memoir taps into the fundamental shift away from ‘public by default’ sharing where you blast to everyone you take a picture. People are seeking shared experiences and private sharing. Memoir is well-positioned to meet that need,” said Ryan Sarver, Twitter’s former Head of Platform and a current partner at Redpoint.
Growth equity
In what is being referred to as a “Series H,” the Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart has raised $600 million just months after taking in $1 billion. All participants in the latest round, Tiger Capital Management, Naspers, and Digital Sky Technologies Global, have previously backed the company, which has now raised nearly $2.5 billion dollars.