Venture Funding Archives - Serious Startups

Mobile Makes It Big In The 3rd Quarter

By now most of us are aware that the future of the Internet is in mobile. According to the Pew Research Center, 56% of Americans have a cell phone. Well over half of them use their phones to access the Internet, and a full 34% use their phones for Internet access more often than they do a desktop or laptop. Worldwide, it is estimated there are already more than 1 billion smartphones in use, and that number’s growing.

That’s the definition of a big market.

That market explains why mobile had its biggest quarter of fundraising ever. CB Insights is reporting that venture deals to mobile companies passed $1 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2013. Exactly a year ago, in the third quarter of 2012, mobile deals almost hit a billion before seeing a sudden drop in the first quarter of this year. Since then, deal flow rose steadily to the $1.12 billion dollars invested in the last 3 months.

Given the $1 billion dollar sale of Instagram to Facebook, you might expect social or photos to have raised the most money. They did garner 4% and 3% each, which is nothing to sneeze at, with numbers that big. However, the biggest winners this quarter were customer relationship management, business analytics, and mobile payments. These three combined garnered 1/5 of all the deals closed.

Who are the VC’s doling out this money? CB Insights looked at mobile deals for the whole year, and 500 Startups comes out on top as the most active mobile investor with 20 deals closed so far this year. Andreesen Horowitz and Google Ventures round out the top three.

This quarter marks the first time mobile deals surpassed those for healthcare. However, mobile-focused healthcare startups still netted 4% of that $1.12 billion.

Our phones and tablets have already become less like novelty devices and more like sturdy workhorse for our work and personal lives. This quarter may mark the first time VC financing reaches $1 billion, but we’re guessing it won’t be the last.

Read the whole CB Insights report and tell us what you think.

Boston Startup: UberSense Raises $1.1M Seed Round From Google Ventures & More

This week seems to be a good week for fundraising outside of the valley. Tuesday we brought you the story about Philadelphia startup Perceptual Networks and the A-List seed round they recently closed. Today the news comes to us by way of Boston and TechStars Boston 2012 graduate, UbserSense.

UbserSense is a sports app thats designed for athletes and coaches at any level to help the athlete with coaching and training. This can be achieved at anytime and anywhere using UberSense’s signature feature, a mobile video collaboration platform that makes it easy to tape, train, and coach.

Aside from participating in the TechStars Boston 2012 program, UberSense saw a huge uptick when it was discovered that the USA Gymnastics and USA Volleyball teams used UberSense to train for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Using an iPhone or iPad with the Ubersense app, coaches or athletes can video-tape and analyze their technique, compare themselves with pros, track their progress; coaches and peers can provide feedback not only in-person, but remotely.The Ubersense app’s main feature and most powerful asset is its innovative video-based feedback experience, called Uberview. An Uberview can contain a coach’s audio feedback, instructive drawings, alterations to video playback, and even comparisons; all are easily captured into an Uberview video that they can easily be shared with an athlete, parent, or peer in-person or remotely.

While UberSense is a sports coaching app, you can read between the lines and see how the UberView technology could be used for anything from coaching and training soccer techniques, basketball, swimming, track and field, even ballet dancing, and public speaking. The ability to not only train and coach from afar but to do it mobile makes the startup even more attractive.

.“Video feedback is an important tool in skill development”, says Jamie Morrison, Assistant Coach of the USA women’s national volleyball team. “It has allowed us to connect how an athlete feels they are performing a skill with what it actually looks like as well as what it should look like. Through ease of use and a low cost, Ubersense puts that valuable tool into the hands of all coaches, parents and athletes.”

“Ubersense helps you raise your game”, says Krishna Ramchandran, co-founder and CEO of Ubersense. “Our investors have contributed to building some of the most successful consumer companies and we are thrilled to have them on our team as we build out the product and company.”

UberSense has raised $1.1 million dollars from Google Ventures, Atlas Ventures, Boston Seed Capital and an undisclosed group of angel investors.

Linkage:

Check out Ubersense here

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Mark Cuban: There’s A Bubble In SiliconValley…Nowhere Else

Self made billionaire, ABC Shark Tank Shark and Dallas Maverick owners Mark Cuban recently spent some time with the Wall Street Cheat Sheeet’s, Damien Hoffman. Of course the wonderful “Bubble 2.0” question came up, and Cuban’s response will be a-ok with the target audience of Nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else.

“There is a bubble only in tech investing in Silicon Valley. Nowhere else in the U.S.” Cuban said in the interview. All of Cuban’s most recent interviews have suggested that valuations in the Valley are way over-hyped. Our West Coast Editor (and co-founder) Brent Fishman has no problem talking abut the wild and crazy valuation of Pinterest. Fishman loves to point out that Pinterest has no actual “business model” in place.

One of the things about Cuban’s assessment being so true for startups “everywhere else” is the fact that even if the playing field in the venture capitalist arena was marginally fair, startups everywhere else already have to work twice as hard from everything else.

More after the break
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MA Startup: Copiun Closes $5M Series A Round For Entreprise Alternative To DropBox

Cloud based storage is a hot topic these days. We’re all anxiously awaiting for Google’s product in the space, said to be called Google Drive. The top contenders in the space already are the popular Dropbox and equally as popular Box.com. Both services offer user the ability to store any kind of file they’d like in their own personal space on the cloud. Both are also using promotions with vast amounts of free storage to attract personal users. However some IT departments don’t feel that traditional cloud based storage offerings are adequate for enterprise.

That’s where Massachusetts based Copiun comes in. Founded by CEO Puneesh Chaudhry and plans to tackle cloud based storage secure enough for corporate IT departments. Chaudhry has found that many people like DropBox however they want it more secure.

“They are saying, can you make my corporate data accessible on these devices, in a secure way,” he told the Boston Business Journal.

While making cloud based data services more secure for enterprise they are also tackling the BYOD market of prosumers as well. More and more people are choosing to bring their personal device to work. There are a variety of software solutions that allow IT departments to securely allow those employees to use a separate “area’ of their phone for business and another for personal.

“You could be sitting in a Starbucks and not connected to the corporate network, and whatever data your company has authorized to be accessible on a device, you can access it, edit it and sync it back. And it only goes to the corporate repository,” Chaudhry said in the same interview.

Copiun’s current $5 million dollar series A round was led by Maryland Venture Capital Firm Novak Biddle Venture Partners. They previously received $1.86 million dollars in a 2010 round led by Boston venture groups; Hub Angels, Launchpad Ventures and Beacon Angels.

Source: Boston Business Journal