Alastair Goldfisher
Ben Franklin Technology Partners Southeastern PA, a Philadelphia-based early-stage backer, invested $1.54 million in 11 deals during March, ranking it as the most active investor in the month. Draper Fisher Jurvetson was the most active institutional venture firm in the month, having backed seven companies with nearly $9 million, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Imagine K12, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based incubator focused in education tech startups, announced today it will fund participating startups in its program up to $100,000. The funding includes $80,000 in debt and $20,000 in equity. Support for the funding of the Imagine K12 Start Fund comes from various investors, including Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, Yahoo co-founder David Filo and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, among others.
ZooZ, a provider of a mobile payments platform, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from XSeed Capital and existing investers lool ventures and Rhodium. The San Francisco-based startup has now raised $3.5 million in total funding.
Supercell, a Helsinki, Finland-based company which merges social games with elements from traditional console titles, has raised a $130 million round of funding co-led by Institutional Venture Partners and Index Ventures. Also joining the round was Atomico Ventures. The company was co-founded by CEO Ilkka Paananen, a longtime director at mobile gaming startup Digital Chocolate.
Gainsight, a provider of customer service management software, has raised a $9 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures. The company, formerly known as Jbara Software, uses big data analytics to monitor and predict customer behavior. Gainsight previously raised about $300,000 in seed-stage funding. As part of the Series A round, Roger Lee, a general partner at Battery Ventures, has joined the board. The company also named Nick Mehta as CEO.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Instart Logic has emerged from stealth, announcing a $17 million Series B round. The funding brings the total amount raised by the company to $26 million, which the company is using to create a cloud-based solution to help mobile Web apps operate quicker. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Tenaya Capital, as well as individual investors from Silicon Valley.
The RealReal, a San Francisco-based luxury resale site, has raised a $14 million Series B round led by InterWest Partners. The round also included existing investors Canaan Partners, e.ventures, Greycroft Partners, Novel TMT Ventures, Panarea Capital and individual investors Suzy Welch and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy.
Medical Device company iRhythm Technologies has raised a $6 million Series D round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Existing investors New Leaf Ventures, Synergy Life Science Partners and Kaiser Permanente Ventures also participated.
A seed stage funding report released today by the San Francisco-based law firm Silicon Legal Strategy shows that party rounds and acqui-hires are on the rise, helping to drive investors to seek more control when making seed deals by taking more board seats in equity rounds. On the debt side, investors are asking for more rights upon a sale of the company and are more frequently demanding side letters and other special rights, according to the report, called "Seed Financings: Three Years in Startup Land."
Online marketplace provider Grand St. announced this week it raised a $1.3 million seed round that was led by First Round Capital. The funding included participation from individual investors David Tisch, Gary Vaynerchuk, as well as betaworks, Collaborative Fund, MESA+, Quotidian Ventures and Undercurrent.