Greycroft Partners

Facebook IPO? Most Stock Jocks Say ‘No’

moghbel — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:34:50 +0000

Are most stock investors buying into the Facebook initial public offering story? Not really, according to a new poll from CNBC and the Associated Press.

Nearly two-thirds of active stock investors think Facebook is going to be overvalued when it goes public this week, according to the AP-CNBC poll…

Viddy Confirms $30M Round From NEA, Goldman, Khosla & Battery Ventures

moghbel — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:42:00 +0000

Alexia said this was coming a few weeks ago, so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but… Viddy announced this morning that it has closed a $30 million Series B funding round. The new financing comes from investors that include NEA, Goldman Sachs, Khosla Ventures, and Battery Ventures, and the round closed just a few months after Viddy raised $6 million in a Series A round back in February….

Sold out L.A. Demo Day to feature 16 tech start-ups

moghbel — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:37:33 +0000

In what is being touted as Los Angeles’ first group Demo Day, 16 tech start-ups will present their business ideas to more than 1,000 investors, media and techies Thursday.

We’ve told you about some of the start-ups already, such as Dog Vacay (think Airbnb for dogs), Capsule (an app for group events), Eventup (an online tool to help users find and book exclusive venues for events) and Surf Air (an all-you-can-fly private membership airline).

Wednesday’s event will also showcase Instacanvas, which enables users to turn their Instagram photographs into real prints; Look.io, a real-time support plug-in for mobile apps; and Roozt, a marketplace for socially conscious brands…

Website search tech start-up raises $1.5M

moghbel — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:37:17 +0000

Elicit, a Chicago-based startup that makes technology to improve searching within websites, said Tuesday that it has raised $1.5 million in its first round of venture capital funding…

Netsertive Named a 2012 North Carolina Company to Watch

moghbel — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:28:01 +0000

Netsertive, a fast-growing online ad technology company, has been named one of 25 North Carolina Companies to Watch by CED, the Southeast’s largest entrepreneurial support organization. The awards will be presented June 12 at a special banquet at the Raleigh Marriott City Center….

Tech Start-Up Legal Issues 6: A VC’s Advice (Video)

moghbel — Mon, 07 May 2012 00:40:23 +0000

(Bloomberg) — Ian Sigalow, a partner at Greycroft Partners LLC, talks with Bloomberg Law’s Spencer Mazyck about legal challenges confronting technology start-ups and model venture capital financing documents.

Now That’s An Investor List: Viddy Backed By Biz Stone, Shakira, And Jay-Z’s Roc Nation

moghbel — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:10:37 +0000

Right after racing to the top of the App Store charts, Viddy just announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a long list of celebrities — not just tech celebrities, but also the kind that non-techies have heard of…

NimbleTV Aims to Stream Pay TV Onto Web Devices

moghbel — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:16:11 +0000

In a move that could hasten the slow pace of so-called TV Everywhere, a technology start-up is introducing a way to move a whole subscription’s worth of TV onto the Web, with or without the subscription company’s permission.

The start-up, called NimbleTV, will begin testing its service with a limited…

UK-based startup game company reaches one million players…and counting

moghbel — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:46:08 +0000

The makers of child-aimed social trading-card game Fight My Monster have just announced that they have reached their one millionth player. It’s aimed at boys aged between 3 and 11, but the average-aged player is 10 years old (10.4 to be precise).

According to the makers, the under-13 crowd is a tough sell in the gaming world. Keeping them engaged is even tougher. Fight My Monster has managed to do both so far. The challenge, the creators say, is getting the word out. Children under 13 may not always be granted access to social networking sites (like Facebook and Twitter) or personal email accounts.

They also claim four times the engagement of Moshi Monsters (a monster-based online world for kids) and almost twice that of Facebook among children in the UK.

Dylan Collins for Fight My Monster spoke with GamesBeat about the title and its growth, saying that they are the “fastest growing online game for boys in the UK.” Players have generated more than six million cards to date, and Fight My Monster has seen more than 32 million battles.

According to him, companies like Activision, Jakks Pacific, and Nickelodeon have each spent somewhere in the realm of $35 to $50 million to create titles such as Skylanders and Monkey Quest to cater to young boys. “We’ve done it with what they spend on a good night out,” says Collins, “$150k, to be exact.”

They’ve managed to raise $2.1 million in funding and have already gathered major investing from big names such as Greycroft Partners, eVentures, and some well-known angel investors. However, they’ve yet to touch that money. Those aren’t bad numbers for a company that just hired its fifth employee.

He adds that Fight My Monster is seeing “runaway playground growth” and has gathered “significant interest from the licensing world,” such as a TV production deal with BrownBag Films (which is behind Disney’s Doc McStuffins).

Collins thinks that some of the success comes from the fact that Fight My Monster is actually a trading-card game, “I think the reason we’ve grown so fast is that we’re not a virtual world. We’re an online trading-card game. Most of our direct competition is very much the former or a clone of the former.”

Can This Video Startup Become The Next Billion Dollar App Company?

moghbel — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:17:56 +0000

Google may have missed its chance to snag Instagram, but if it wants to make another YouTube-like purchase it should get to know video-sharing app Viddy.

Viddy is the number 2 free photo and video app in the Apple App Store, after Instagram.

It’s not surprising, since like Instagram, it has a frictionless way to share content on the phone and it has filters that make the content look better.

Brett O’Brien, co-founder of Viddy, said it allows people to capture and beautify their content and share across Facebook and Twitter.

“We help people capture 15 seconds of their life,” O’Brien said. “Instagram has photo features and Viddy has production packs.”…..