Luisa Beltran
Juggernaut Capital Partners and Centra Capital AS have led an $18 million round of funding for VOSS. VOSS is a Norwegian bottled water company. Sawaya Segalas & Co. provided financial advice to VOSS.
Zipmark, which lets users pay bills using their smart phones, has closed $2 million in seed funding, according to cofounder and CEO Jay Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya wouldn't disclose investors. That information will be revealed when Zipmark puts out a statement (that's coming soon, he says).
"We’ve been working toward this for the last 12 months," Bhattacharya says. "We’re very happy with the syndicate of New York-based investors that is coming together."
Founded in March 2010 by Bhattacharya and Jake Howerton, Zipmark is a mobile and online payments company. Zipmark, of New York, claims its transactions are just like using a check, but without the paper or the trip to the bank. Using a mobile barcode, Zipmark accepts payments from any bank, thrift or credit union. Customers pay with the money in their checking accounts and any payments go directly into their accounts, without fees or delays, according to the Zipmark web site.
Greg Kouvelas has joined Seven Hills as an MD. Previously, Kouvelas was an MD at Innovation Advisors where he headed its Silicon Valley office.
JOYUS said Monday that it has closed its first institutional round of funding at $7.9 million. Accel Partners and Harrison Metal were lead investors. JOYUS short-form videos that helps consumers purchase products. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, former Google exec., is the founder.
Lightbank has led a $1.2 million investment into BabbaCo. SV Angel also collaborated. BabbaCo is a baby products company.
Meet Warren Lee, head of Canaan Partners' New York office. A specialist in digital media, Lee was promoted to general partner in June after spending six years with Canaan. He recently sat down with peHUB for a quick Q&A on a wide range of topics:
Q: Is there a bubble in tech?
A: I think there are bubbles in selective categories such as flash sites and social media startups. There are too many 'me-too' startups without any real differentiation getting funded by investors. How many different services can your average online consumer subscribe to before getting fatigued?
Q: What did you think of Specific Media buying Myspace for $35 million?
A: I was surprised the price was so cheap. Thirty five million isn't a lot if you can execute and take advantage of the asset. [They've] gotten a fair price. They've also gotten Justin Timberlake and you can't beat that combination. There's still lots of traffic [at Myspace] and lot of profiles. They'll get value out of it.
Alara Capital has spun off from Guggenheim Partners. Alara, which has offices King of Prussia, Pa. and Austin, Texas, is the former Guggenheim Venture Partners. All of GVP's team's has moved to Alara.
Scott Schopen has joined Specific Media as a VP of corporate development. He spent seven years at Piper Jaffray, where he oversaw M&A, IPOs and secondaries as well as private capital raises. Specific Media, a digital media company, recently acquired Myspace.
It’s Friday and there still isn’t a compromise on the debt ceiling.
But voters of peHUB’s weekly poll think there will be one. In fact, 72.6% of readers that voted believe that we’ll have a debt deal in time to meet the Aug. 2 deadline. Another 27.4% believe there won’t be a compromise and the U.S. will eventually default.
Results of the poll are pretty surprising (to me). Democrats and Republicans continue to argue like spoiled children. Late Thursday, House Republicans were expected to vote on a plan from Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). This didn’t happen. House Republicans today are meeting again to find the last few votes they need to pass the deal, according to the New York Times. However, Boehner’s bill has little chance to survive in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D-Nev.), is also moving forward with his own debt proposal. He's vowed to kill Boehner's plan.
And, President Obama is back in the thick of it. On Friday, he urged Congress to pass a debt ceiling plan and indicated he would accept a two-part plan to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, USA Today reported.
Roka Bioscience has closed a $20 million Series C round of funding. OrbiMed Advisors, New Enterprise Associates, Inc., TPG Biotech and Gen-Probe Incorporated participated, according to a statement. Warren, N.J.-based Roka develops solutions using molecular technologies for the industrial markets.