With so much going on in the city’s thriving ecosystem, it is easy to miss some of the happenings in the space. We keep you abreast of a few of things that you may have missed in NYC Tech this week including the fundings, exits, and events. At the end, we have also listed some of the upcoming events this week that you need to be aware of.
CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN SILICON ALLEY THIS WEEK
Reserve, whose app is a digital concierge focused on making every part of the dining experience better, for both restaurants and diners, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from investors including William Morris Endeavor, Jon Favreau, Jared Leto, Visionnaire Ventures, Venture51, SV Angels, Sherpa Ventures, Advancit Capital, First Round, Lowercase Capital and Human Ventures Capital.
R/GA Accelerator powered by Techstars held its Demo Day this week and here are the 10 Connected Devices Techstars they unleashed on the world.
InterviewJet, the members-only hiring platform granting select employers 72 hour access to fully vetted technologists, has raised $750,000 in seed funding from Mitchell Martin, an IT and healthcare staffing company.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we took a look at a few NYC startups that may help you get through this cold winter with some tech enabled companionship – 10 NYC Startups That Will Help You Find Love
Niche, a social advertising platform that connects Internet stars with big-brand advertisers, has been acquired by Twitter for roughly $30 million. The company had raised $3.1 million in seed funding from a veritable who’s who of investors, including Slow Ventures, BoxGroup, David Tisch, Bryan Goldberg, Advancit Capital, Christopher Altchek, William Morris Endeavor, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures.
Barclays Accelerator powered by Techstars announced that they will be coming to NYC this summer with a class starting in July. Applications open up on March 2nd.
NodeSource, an enterprise-focused company with a robust software development toolkit for Node.js, has raised $3M in seed funding from Crosslink Capital and Resolute Ventures.
Social shopping platform Fancy has raised $20 million in Series D funding, led by billionaire Carlos Slim.
And fancy this: the company has now raised roughly $124 million, from investors including from Allen & Co., General Catalyst Partners, along with some well known and big-name angel investors, including Jack Dorsey, Will Smith and Bob Pittman.
Datadog, the monitoring service that brings together metrics and events from servers, databases, applications, tools and services to present a unified view of the infrastructure to help helps software developers and web operators understand and turn their IT data into actionable insights, has acquired predictive analytics company Mortar Data.
Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Conductor, whose marketing software is focused on web presence management, has raised $27 million in a Series D funding round led by Catalyst Investors, with participation from Blue Cloud Ventures and earlier backers FirstMark Capital, Matrix Partners and Investor Growth Capital.
NYC Startup Love in Fast Company…
Fast Company announced its annual ranking of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2015, honoring leading enterprises and rising newcomers exemplifying the best in business and innovation, and Brooklyn-based Livestream earned the No. 3 spot on the Media list this year for becoming an “invaluable source for live coverage…for those increasingly living without cable television.”
Poshly is a company that makes Big Data beautiful – and so took the #5 spot on FAST COMPANY’S list of “The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Big Data,” which is part of the magazine’s list of “50 Most Innovative Companies.”
It’s certainly a Big Year for Poshly CEO and Cofounder Doreen Bloch, who was also recently named one of 2015 New York Venture Fellows.
DigiTour Media was also named to this year’s FAST COMPANY list of “50 Most Innovative Companies,” coming in at #4 on “The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Live Events.”
DigiTour creates and produces IRL (“in real life”) experiences, featuring social media stars in the form of concerts (DigiTours) and events (DigiFests). Founded by former music A&R executive Meridith Valiando Rojas and multi-platinum music producer Chris Rojas, DigiTour was the world’s first YouTube tour and now features a bill of YouTube and Vine-based performers popular among Generation Z and Millennials.
Jet, which is still in stealth mode and promises to change ecommerce forever – very soon – has raised $140 million in Series B funding a long list of investors, including Thrive Capital, Temasek Holdings, Silicon Valley Bank, New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Accel Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, MentorTech Ventures, NorthWest Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs and Coatue Management.
Moda Operandi, the online luxury fashion retailer that allows members to pre-order ready-to-wear accessories and jewelry, has raised $60 million in funding.
This is the company’s fifth funding round. Existing investors LVMH, Condé Nast, RRE Ventures and New Enterprise Associates contributed to the round, which was led by Fidelity Investments, with additional participation from Future Fund.
With the participation of Fidelity Investments, look for a liquidity event in the future.
PCH International is buying the e-commerce company Fab in a deal reportedly valued at $15 million to $50 million, based on PCH’s stock.
Thirty Labs, a startup studio that’s building the next generation of digital video businesses, has raised $2 million in seed funding from a long list of investors, including Elisabeth Murdoch, Tumblr founder David Karp, Bloomberg Beta, Broadway Video, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Advancit Capital.
Alice – as in A Life Improving Customer Experience (ALICE) – a platform that allows hoteliers to provide mobile services to their guests, raised $3 million in seed funding. Investors included 645 Ventures, Jason Finger, Todd Arky, Paul Appelbaum, and Neuehouse.
Taking a look forward, here are a few events that are coming up this week that should prove to be excellent:
On Tuesday night, our friends at New York Enterprise Sales Meetup host a panel event on Managing the Enterprise Deal, where they will discuss how to build up your champion, validate the value proposition, get internal consensus, understand the buying process, and do the blocking and tacking needed to get executive buy-in – Managing the Enterprise Deal at Work-Bench.
Also on Tuesday, New York Venture Community: Finance hosts a panel on making the switch out of the corporate world and into startups – Making the Switch: Corporate Finance to Startup World at General Assembly.
On Thursday morning, join Startup OneStop as they host breakfast with prominent angel investor, Alicia Syrett, Founder, Pantegrion Capital – StartupOneStop Breakfast with an Investor at Cowork|rs.
On Thursday evening, our friends at Startup Grind NYC host Max Krohn – Startup Grind New York City at Pivotal Labs.
On Friday, our friends at Pipeline Fellowship host their annual all day event on angel investing – 2015 NYC Pipeline Fellowship Conference at Goodwin Procter.
For a full listing of upcoming events for the NYC startup and tech community, please visit the AlleyWatch NYC Tech and Startup Event Calendar.
