Venture Capital Tag
Google Ventures, the venture capital arm of Google has announced its expansion into London. The firm which was launched in 2009 in order to expose Google to some of the technology world’s hottest startups. The fund will have an initial funding of $100 million with the aim of investing in European startups that criss-cross Western Europe – London, Paris, Berlin and the Nordics. The fund will have 4 general partners with Eze Vidra, Google Campus’ manager in London leading the pack. He will be supported by Tom Hulme, a serial entrepreneur,Read More
Transferwise, a London-based money transfer startup has landed $25M from a consortium of investors. The investors include Peter Thiel’s internationally focused venture fund, Valar Ventures, Sir Richard Branson, Index Ventures and IA Ventures. The money transfer startup established by one of the co-founders of Skype was founded in 2011. It plans to use the investment to further improve its service and expand its low-cost international transfer offering to to new countries. Transferwise bills itself as the cheapest way to send money abroad. The investment is a seal of approval on theRead More
Popular San Francisco based company Airbnb is reported to be raising over $400M according to the WSJ in late stage funding. The website, which enables users to rent and occupy rooms and houses has experienced tremendous growth in the past two years with over 600,000 properties of which over 600 are castles, available in over 34,000 cities and 192 countries. The late stage venture round is reportedly spearheaded by the the private equity firm TPG capital could value the company as high as $10B. Putting it in context, the companyRead More
Popular San Francisco-based reservation site, Eventbrite has raised $60 million at a valuation of $1 billion according to Fortune Magazine. Headed by Julia and Kevin Hartz, the company aims to be the largest marketplace for tickets is . The funding was raised from Tiger Global Management, one of the most successful hedge funds in the world, and T. Rowe Price – a large mutual fund. The company has hit a growth spurt with gross ticket sales of $1 billion last year. The 8 year-old firm has recently made big changesRead More
Things have got a little better for Silicon Valley online storage company, Dropbox. It recently raised $250 million from outside investors valuing the firm at a cool $10 billion. The deal was led by a division of BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest investor with over $4 trillion (yes, $4 trillion) in assets under management. The funds from the Series C round go towards their on-going product development in enterprise software which promises to be a money maker for the firm. According to the Wall Street Journal, Dropbox made about $200Read More
Red-hot fashion site Nasty Gal has completed its series B round of funding of $40 million from its sole investor, Index Ventures. The site which was launched in 2006 by 28-year old Sophia Amoruso, has experienced exponential growth rates with the comapny and over 60% gross margins putting it on-par with the big names in retail. The company which had sales of $28 million is on track to more than quadruple its 2011 sales to the tune of $128 million. Unlike most Internet firms, Nasty Gal boasts a 350,000-strong loyal user baseRead More