Wimba Closes $6 Million in Series C Funding Led by ABS Ventures

New York (PRWEB) June 9, 2009

Wimba

Lets Go Chipper! Program Launches at Barnes & Noble - Award-winning Series is Nature-inspired, Playfully Teaching Good Character in Children

San Francisco, California (PRWEB) August 30, 2011

With a goal to inspire family connections in nature and positively impact the social and emotional development of young children, Bay Area family entertainment company Its all Good media (IAGmedia, Inc.) launches its award-winning, eco-educational series Lets Go Chipper! Into the Great Outdoors into select Barnes & Noble stores today. Stores will feature end-cap and video displays of the premiere animated and live action DVD which also includes a bonus CD of award-winning music.

Winner of iParentings "Hot Product" Award and Family Fun/Disney.coms Top Ten Video Award, the DVD and bonus CD tell the story of Chipper, an overly curious city squirrel, who uses music, mishap and humor to playfully teach children about nature and the environment and the importance of respecting and caring for others. Children follow along as Chipper ventures into the great outdoors with his family on their first camping trip. It doesnt take long for Chipper to get lost but with the help of his eco-friends big and small he is returned safely to his parents with many conscientious lessons to share along with a new found love for nature.

The program offers many Chipper Tips which empower kids and parents to explore confidently and curiously together. Research shows interactions with nature play an important role in a child's development including building problem solving and critical thinking skills, creativity and positive social relationships.

Positive connections in the great outdoors directly benefit the physical and emotional well-being of a child beginning at the earliest age and we want to get them ready to go so parents will feel more confident about the experience, says creator Stephanie Rach-Wilson. We are thrilled to work with Barnes & Noble and help connect the store to communities through in-store events and our eco-educational and fun series that helps foster meaningful conversations and connections between children and parents, and with nature.

The company will list in-store events featuring story time, play-based activities and crafts for young children and visits from Chipper on its Lets Go Chipper Facebook page and announcements on Twitter.

The DVD includes a bonus music video White Sand, Blue Water which encourages kids to dance along with Peabody, a boogying brown bear. The DVD package also includes a bonus CD featuring 5 original songs featured in the video; Im Chipper, The Smore Song, We All Live In The Great Outdoors, Blue Planet Green, and The Sun Comes Up, The Sun Goes Down.

Lets Go Chipper! Into the Great Outdoors was produced by Bay Area based IAGmedia, a conscientious media company delivering products and programs that help instill respect, empathy, and a mindset to contribute to family and community. In addition to the DVD, the company offers a series of movies, music, books, and educational apps for children, 18 months to 8 years.

The book series is available currently on the company site,http://www.letsgochipper.com.

Chipper Ambassadors from around the world have joined the journey sharing tips and experiences that help keep families on the go for good, and provide ideas for child-friendly activities in nature. To inquire about being a Chipper Ambassador or to book a Chipper Story time, please email connect(at)letsgochipper(dot)com.

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Livemocha Raises $8 Million in Series B Funding

Bellevue, WA (PRWEB) December 22, 2009

Livemocha (http://www.livemocha.com)], the worlds largest language learning community, today announced that the company has raised $ 8 million in a Series B financing round led by August Capital, with participation from existing investor Maveron.

Livemocha is the leading language learning site worldwide, with over 4.8 million registered members from over 200 countries. Livemocha offers free and premium online learning courses for over 30 languages, led by the award-winning Livemocha Active English.

Livemocha offers a highly effective online learning experience that has quickly attracted a large and active global community. Social, interactive lessons include practice with native speakers for natural development of practical language skills. Specific revenues are undisclosed but growing rapidly, with customers in 97 countries paying for premium products and services.

This latest round brings the total funds raised to date by Livemocha to $ 14 million, and will be applied to accelerate platform innovation and new partnership launches planned for the next 6-12 months.

Closing a significant round of funding is acknowledgement of our progress and underscores the large, disruptive potential of Livemocha, said Shirish Nadkarni, CEO and co-founder of Livemocha. We are excited and well-positioned to realize a very ambitious vision for the future of language learning.

Howard Hartenbaum, General Partner from August Capital, has joined Amy Errett of Maveron on Livemochas Board of Directors. The company's Series A was led by Maveron in December 2007.

About Livemocha

Livemocha is a Seattle-based company that is redefining language learning by combining dynamic online courses in over 30 languages with the world's largest community of native language speakers. Since launching in September 2007, Livemocha has grown to over 4.8 million members, underscoring the strong demand for an engaging, collaborative approach to language learning. There are currently over 375 million people wanting to learn a language worldwide, and the market is currently estimated to be over $ 80 billion, fueled by rapid globalization, immigration and travel.

For more information about Livemocha, please visit http://www.livemocha.com.

About August Capital

Founded in 1995, August Capital has funded an extraordinary group of entrepreneurs who have built significant, long-term value across the full range of information technologies. These companies represent an aggregate market capitalization of well over $ 250 billion and generate in excess of $ 75 billion in annual revenue around the world. This success is a testament to the entrepreneurs themselves, as well as the fundamental technologies they have created. The partners at August Capital were the earliest investors in a number of ground breaking technology companies, including Microsoft, Intuit, Seagate, Sun, Skype, Compaq, Symantec, Sybase, Atheros, Grand Junction and many more. August Capital is located in Menlo Park, California. For more information, please visit: http://www.augustcap.com.

About Maveron

Maveron is a leading venture capital firm based in Seattle, Washington. Dan Levitan and Howard Schultz founded Maveron in January 1998 with the goal of building a firm that would be recognized as the premier financial and strategic partner to leading consumer-based businesses. Maveron's mission is to partner with entrepreneurs in the creation of extraordinary companies in order to generate outstanding financial returns. Current representative Maveron investments include fast-growing consumer companies, such as Potbelly Sandwich Works, Pinkberry, Altius Education, VideoEgg and Livemocha. Monetized investments include eBay, Capella Education Company, Shutterfly, Cranium (acquired by Hasbro), Qsent (acquired by TransUnion), Quellos (acquired by Blackrock), Good Technology (acquired by Motorola) and lucy activewear (acquired by VF Corporation). Maveron has approximately $ 750 million under management and 23 active portfolio companies nationwide. For more information, please visit: http://www.maveron.com.

Contact:

Livemocha

Clint Schmidt, 206-422-2693

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Flurry Raises $7 Million Series B to Accelerate Mobile Analytics Firm's Rapid Growth - InterWest Partners leads round of financing

San Francisco and New York (PRWEB) January 12, 2010

Flurry, Inc., a leading mobile application analytics provider, today announced it has closed a Series B financing round of $ 7 million. Led by top-tier venture capital firm InterWest Partners, the round included existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and Draper Richards.

InterWest general partner, Doug Pepper, also joins the Flurry board of directors. In addition to a decade of technology investment experience focused on digital marketing and advertising, Mr. Pepper brings board level experience with relevant companies including Marketo, INVIDI Technologies, Brand.net and Offerpal Media, as well as professional experience with Amazon.com.

Since launching its service in January 2009, Flurry has quickly emerged as one of the worlds largest mobile application analytics and monetization platforms. The company now tracks over one billion end user application sessions per month across iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices. Over 15,000 developers have chosen to integrate Flurry Analytics within their applications, which have been downloaded to more than 80% of all iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices.

Smartphone application download growth is skyrocketing like nothing in recent consumer tech history, dwarfing even early Internet adoption, said Flurry chief executive officer, Simon Khalaf. With its significant reach, Flurry is positioned to play a significant role in leveraging the measurement of consumer behavior to accelerate the sale of applications and virtual goods.

The financing will be used to aggressively build out new services that increase application developer revenue, hire new employees and scale its infrastructure. Flurry AppCircle, currently in private beta, is the first of a series of revenue generating services designed to use data to intelligently target consumers and increase sales in the App Store.

Flurry has built one of the industrys most widely deployed and powerful tools for measuring and monetizing mobile application usage, said Doug Pepper, general partner, InterWest Partners. "This is an exciting time of innovation and growth for the mobile industry and we're thrilled to be involved with the passionate and experienced team at Flurry.

With Apples announcement last week that more than three billion apps have been downloaded, the App Store is growing at a rate 15 times faster than the iTunes store over the same time period. Piper Jaffray senior analyst, Gene Munster forecasts that Apple will sell an additional 36 million iPhones in 2010, a 40 percent increase from 2009 estimates. Additionally, more than 50 Android handsets, including the recently launched Google Nexus One, are expected to ship in 2010. Looking forward, Frost & Sullivan forecasts that Android OS devices will hold the third largest market share of the smartphone market by 2014, among the fastest rates of growth for a mobile product in the history of the mobile industry.

To learn more about the Flurry Analytics and Flurry AppCircle, please visit http://www.flurry.com.

About Flurry

Recently merged with Pinch Media, Flurry is among the largest smartphone application analytics and monetization platforms in the world, now tracking more than 80% of all consumers across iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices. Each month, Flurry tracks over one billion end user sessions per month across iPhone, Android, Blackberry and J2ME devices.

Flurry Analytics, its flagship service, is designed to help developers make better applications to increase retention and grow revenue. Flurry AppCircle, now in private beta, is designed to help developers acquire the most valuable users, faster and for less money. Flurry is venture backed with offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please visit http://www.flurry.com.

About InterWest Partners

For 30 years InterWest (http://www.interwest.com) has partnered with exceptional entrepreneurs to build winning technology and life sciences companies. With more than 200 years of combined operating and investing experience, InterWests team has raised $ 2.8B, completed more than 70 IPOs, and participated in nearly 60 upside acquisitions. As the firm invests InterWest X, a $ 650M fund, InterWest continues to believe that providing capital is just the beginning of a long-term collaboration with entrepreneurs to turn their vision into a thriving company.

The firm's past successful investments in information technology include: CIENA (CIEN), Copper Mountain Networks (CMTN), Crystal Semiconductor (acquired by Cirrus Logic, CRUS), Cyrix (CYRX; acquired by National Semiconductor (NSM), Lightera (acquired by CIENA), PlaceWare (acquired by Microsoft, MSFT), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse, VTSS), Silicon Graphics (SGI), Stratacom (STRM; acquired by Cisco, CSCO) and Xilinx (XLNX).

Note to Editors

iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and J2ME are trademarks of their respective companies. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

Media contact:

Peter Farago

VP Marketing

Flurry, Inc.

peter(at)flurry(dot)com

510-461-4450

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TabbedOut Secures $2.05 Million Series A Round Of Funding From NEA For National Expansion

Austin, TX (PRWEB) October 5, 2010

TabbedOut, the secure and innovative way to pay your bar or restaurant tab with a smartphone, today announced that the company has secured $ 2.05 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) in a Series A round of venture funding.

The funding, which follows a $ 750,000 angel round, brings the companys financing to $ 2.8 million in total. The round will be used to extend lighthouse markets onto a national stage, continue to build out the companys hospitality partner network, and enhance TabbedOuts breakthrough mobile payment technology.

The TabbedOut product works with existing point-of-sale systems removing the need for merchants to purchase any new equipment while patrons are able to checkout without presenting a credit card and receipts are emailed to them afterwards.

NEA was an obvious fit because of their expertise in IT, mobile and security and were confident our collective efforts will bring TabbedOut to a city near you soon said Rick Orr, Co-Founder and CEO of TabbedOut. Weve already seen great adoption in our test markets and are looking forward to expanding into other areas where mobile payments will make life easier for merchants and their patrons.

As part of the funding agreement, NEA General Partner Scott Sandell and Venture Partner Jimmy Treybig will join the TabbedOut Board of Directors. Sandell focuses on information technology investing and has led NEAs investments in industry-leading companies like Salesforce.com, WebEx and Data Domain. Treybig, a Silicon Valley pioneer with extensive security expertise, is the founder and former CEO of Tandem computers and also served as Chairman of the Board of ClearCommerce and Whole Security.

In the rapidly expanding mobile payments market, TabbedOut is emerging as a leader in both innovation and security, said Sandell. The team has a tremendous depth of experience in security software and card payments, garnered at leading companies like Whole Security, MPOWER Labs and Symantec. Were thrilled to partner with TabbedOut as they scale their operations and really deliver on the potential of this incredible technology.

TabbedOut also recently brought on Kevin McKeand, former VP of Strategic Account Sales for AT&T Wi-Fi Services (acquired as Wayport in 2008), to serve as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He is responsible for building the TabbedOut sales team across the U.S. and selling to new hospitality partners.

About TabbedOut:

TabbedOut is a product of ATX Innovation, a company focused on changing the payments paradigm for the hospitality industry in order to increase convenience and security. TabbedOut saves time and increases security measures in a fraud-prone industry while providing a better customer experience. The company is actively seeking additional hospitality partners to further enable its expansion.