Aug 14, 2013

Liberty FilmsIt’s a Wonderful Life was released in 1946We had two companies that got $43 million today — so why not celebrate the 40s! It seems fitness and finances attract a lot of money. Fitbit grabbed $43 million for its fitness apps and wearables, and Tradescape got the same for its financial software as a service product. We hope these companies celebrate with a little swing dancing followed by a good cuddle to It’s A Wonderful Life. For more funding news as it happens, subscribe to our Deals Channel feed. You can also follow VentureBeat on Twitter, @venturebeat, to view funding news as it’s published. More money for wearables and health tech: Fitbit gets $43M Quantified selfers, there’s money to be made from your love of data. Fitbit, the fitness gadget maker that collects data about your exercise activities, received $43 million in funding today, according to an SEC filing. Fitbit collects information about how many calories you burn, how many steps you take, how far you go, and what your sleep patterns look like. You can track all of this information through the company’s iOS and Android apps as well as online. Brad Feld, managing partner of the Foundry Group; Jon Callaghan, managing partner at True Ventures; and Steve Murray, a partner with Softbank Capital are all listed as investors in the filing. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Tradescape raises $43M to help digital media companies manage finances Tradescape has raised $43 million for its software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to help online businesses handle their finances. The $43 million sum is the first chunk of of a proposed $114 million round. Tradecape works with ad agencies, content publishers, and content creators to manage transactions that start in digital media marketplaces. Its “financial clearing” technology automates financial reconciliation, clearing, billing, settlement, invoicing, reporting, and auditing. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Looker scores $16M from Redpoint to take on Tableau & SAP in business intelligence Big data and analytics startup Looker has raised $16 million in its first round of funding to promote data-driven discovery in “big data” software and to help it take on major players in the space. Looker’s web-based product is taking on a crowded business intelligence field that includes such players as SAP, Tableau, KissMetrics, GoodData, and Mixpanel. But it claims to differentiate itself by making the software easier to use than most. The new round of funding was led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation by prior investor First Round Capital. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Change Healthcare nabs $15M to promote health care cost transparency With change from the Affordable Care Act comes opportunity — and confusion. So investors are placing their bets on health transparency startups like Change Healthcare, which help people save money and select the best insurance plan. Today, Change secured $15 million in financing from strategic investors, including the venture arm of BlueCross Blue Shield. The company will use the funding to grow its team in anticipation of opportunities arising from the Affordable Care Act. Read the full story on VentureBeat. CloudPhysics raises $10M to crowdsource insights for virtualized IT CloudPhysics made a triple threat of announcements today. The big data company has raised $10 million in funding led by Kleiner and released two new analytics tools to optimize virtualized data centers. CloudPhysics develops tools that analyze how virtualized data centers function. Its servers process 80 billion samples of configuration, performance, failure, and event data, as well as 20 trillion data points from its global user base to provide insight on how to most efficiently structured virtualized IT. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Sosh raises another $10M to be your local social concierge Mobile recommendations are still a big deal, and they’re helping Sosh raise a $10.1 million round of VC money. Using a combination of local listings and user-supplied data points, Sosh recommends events, places, and activities that are relevant to its users’ interests. Instead of taking the Foursquare/Yelp approach, where people are searching for locations, Sosh brings the locations to users based on what it knows about them. The latest funding round was led by Khosla Ventures. Read the full story on VentureBeat. VeliQ takes $9M Mobile platform-as-a-service company VeliQ today announced a sizable Series B in the amount of $9 million. The round was led by Northcap with participation from existing investor T-venture. The company’s primary product is called MobiDM; it’s a mPaaS based on SAP technology that lets clients securely manage large numbers of devices and applications in the mobile space. AnsibleWorks raises $6M IT automation company AnsibleWorks has just raised its first round of institutional funding in the amount of $6 million. The year-and-a-half-old startup got its money primarily from Menlo Ventures. Its product helps developers and IT teams manage data centers, cloud technologies, and infrastructure. Today, the company claims more than 300,000 users and a monthly download rate approaching 30,000. eShares gets $1.8M eShares, a startup that’s trying to turn all your paper stock certificates into electronic shares, has just raised $1.8 million. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based team of five took its first round from k9 Ventures, Kima Ventures, Elefund, Scott Banister, Andy Palmer, Draper VC, and a slew of other individuals and firms. The company is targeting private companies, particularly through law firms that cater to startups. Arkami grabs $1.8M to grow its password-replacing fingerprint ID devices Arkami, a security identification startup, has raised a cool $1.8 million in funding to help grow its products such as myIDkey, the company announced today. The myIDkey product offers Arkami clients a way to identify themselves using a variety of methods. It’s essentially a fingerprint ID scanner that uses both voice and USB drive Bluetooth technology for verification. It fills in password and other personal information automatically so you don’t have to keep remembering them. It’s geared towards both mobile devices and PCs. The funding round comes from Gordon Clemons, McNeel Capital, Mark Swanson and others. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Fashioholic raises $1M to debut ‘serious’ mobile fashion games Fashion, for some, is a serious business. Fashioholic launched its first game today and announced that it has raised $1 million in seed funding. The Israeli startup makes mobile fashion games. Its Fashion Eye app is a social game where players pick a style theme and get prompted them with questions. It might show two shoes and ask which is more expensive, or ask you to guess the price of a ring. You can play against friends, unlock badges, trend tips, and offers, as well as save clothing you are interested in purchasing. The funding came from private investors and micro funds. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Filed under: Deals