Showing posts with label Funding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Funding. Show all posts

Friday, 25 November 2011

Proformative Announces $1.1M in Series A Funding

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) May 10, 2011

Proformative, the nation's leading online resource for corporate finance executives, announces Series A funding of $ 1.1 million. The funding was led by Bullpen Capital and Mike Maples of Floodgate. The capital will be used to accelerate expansion as the leading online destination for corporate finance, treasury and accounting executives.


Proformative is the largest and fastest growing online resource for senior level corporate finance executives, offering a uniquely valuable resource where corporate finance, treasury and accounting executives excel in their careers through an unmatched global peer network, expert advice and guidance, valuable news and information and cutting-edge tools and resources, all in a completely professional, noise-free environment. Proformative offers a professional community with more than 350,000 members, 70% of whom hold titles of Director, Vice President or C-Level Executives.


"As the premier destination for corporate finance, treasury and accounting executives, Proformative offers an exciting and effective new platform that has experienced exponential growth in its first two years. Proformative is the first functionally-focused online resource to succeed with this community and we believe they have massive growth potential, said Mike Maples, Partner at Floodgate, and investor in key platforms and networks such as Twitter, Chegg and Spiceworks.


"Proformative is building a marketplace for corporate finance executives. Marketplaces are hard to build, but once at scale, are very sticky," says Duncan Davidson, Founder and Managing Director of Bullpen Capital. "We see this company as building one of the long-term successful franchises of this era."


Founded in 2009 in Silicon Valley, California, Proformative (http://www.proformative.com) is exclusively dedicated to serving the needs of corporate finance, accounting, treasury and related professionals. Proformatives members find valuable free resources, relevant news and information, and a vibrant community of their peers and subject matter experts that enable them to manage corporate transformation and excel in their careers.


We believe the Series A funding offered by Bullpen Capital and Floodgate is a testament to our success to date and an indication of the growth potential of Proformative, said John Kogan, CEO of Proformative. We offer a unique solution and a wealth of valuable tools, resources and content all designed for this highly influential audience. The Proformative platform has been embraced by many Fortune 500 companies and other partners interested in accessing our audience of influential business leaders.


FLOODGATE is a Silicon Valley based, early-stage micro-VC fund focused on start-ups that fundamentally disrupt existing large markets or create new market categories. The firm currently works with consumer-focused companies such as Twitter, Chegg, ngmoco, digg, Modcloth, KNO, Stipple, and Smule, as well as business-focused companies such as Solarwinds, Spiceworks, Demandforce, Egnyte, and YuMe Networks.


BULLPEN CAPITAL is a new venture fund that invests in early stage social/mobile/web companies, typically in follow-on financings originally funded by super-angels. Bullpens role is to extend the lean investment model established by the super-angels, which has led to the rapid success of companies like Twitter, Chegg, Etsy and Groupon. In addition to Proformative, Bullpens portfolio also includes Assistly and a third company operating in stealth mode.


For more information, visit http://www.proformative.com or call 408-400-3993


For media inquiries, please contact Proformative CEO, John Kogan at jkogan(at)proformative(dot)com.


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Blekko Closes $30 Million Funding Round; Welcomes Yandex as Strategic Investor

Redwood Shores, CA (PRWEB) September 29, 2011

Blekko, the search engine striving to eliminate spam from search results, announced today that Europes largest internet company Yandex will make a strategic investment in the Silicon Valley search start up. Additional investors in the $ 30 million funding round were Australian investor, MLC Private Equity, and existing investors U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital and PivotNorth Capital.


"Blekko's top tier technology and fresh product approach has enabled it to sustain growth since it launched, something no other U.S. search start up has been able to accomplish in more than a decade," said Arkady Volozh, Principal Founder and CEO of Yandex, who will join the blekko board. We love blekko and think its a great product a quality search engine that organically combines search algorithms with expert opinions. We believe the outlook for this approach is strong and that the blekko team is poised to make it a success.


Yandex has 3000 employees in six countries including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus,Turkey and the United States, where the company has operated Yandex Labs from its Palo Alto office since 2008. The company offers an array of search services and products including web search, news search, video search, shopping search, real time traffic monitoring, maps, photo hosting, online payments, spam protection, an advertising network, and analytics. Yandex.ru sees 41.2 million unique visitors per month and currently has 63 percent market share in Russia. Yandex went public on the NASDAQ Global Select Market in May 2011.


Yandex is a partner and investor that shares our mission of making search the best experience it can be, said Rich Skrenta, CEO of blekko. Having access to one of the worlds top pools of search talent and the fantastic products they have built will help us grow blekko in the U.S.


For more than 20 years, Yandex has been developing and optimizing search technology, which is the core of the companys business and has helped Yandex become one of the best-known brands and the number one web destination in Russia.


Blekko was founded in 2007 and launched the search engine to the public in November 2010, offering a user-curated search experience that let searchers drill down into vertical categories using slashtags. Earlier this year the search company expanded its efforts to eliminate spam from search results and banned pages from well-known content farms as well as blocking pages from 1.1 million domains that were generating spam.


For more information, visit: http://blekko.com/


About blekko

blekko was founded in 2007 to pursue innovations that would eliminate spam in search results. The companys investors and strategic partners are Yandex, MLC Australia, U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital, PivotNorth Capital, and leading angel investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Jeff Clavier, and Marc Andreessen. blekko has 27 employees, including former Google and Yahoo! Search engineers.


About Yandex

Yandex is the leading internet company in Russia, operating the countrys most popular search engine and the most visited website. Yandex also operates in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Turkey. Yandexs mission is to answer any question internet users may have.


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