Next Generation Texting Company GOGII Raises $8.2 Million in New Financing

Marina del Rey, Calif. (PRWEB) December 10, 2009

GOGII, Inc., the creator of the next generation texting application textPlus, announced today that it has raised $ 8.2 million in a round of financing led by Matrix Partners, with existing investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers also participating in the round. The new funding is the second round of successful financing for the quickly growing mobile start-up, which raised a Series A round from Kleiner Perkins' iFund in December 2007.

GOGII's mobile application textPlus merges both old-style texting - one-to-one conversations - and next generation texting - rich, engaging environments and instant group text conversations. The company uses sponsorships and advertisements embedded in the textPlus app environment to make it free for users to download and use.

"Today, the number of cell phone users who use texting as their primary mode of communication is staggering; GOGII has learned how to tap this enormous market and help advertisers reach consumers on their mobile devices in a way that has never been done before," said Scott Lahman, CEO and co-founder of GOGII. "We are honored to receive this kind of validation from two of the world's most successful venture firms. The new financing will allow us to bring our rich texting environments and features to even more carriers, handsets and users."

"What impressed us most about GOGII was its ability to provide a simple, appealing environment on mobile phones where rich advertisements are sure to be seen: alongside SMS messages," said Matrix Partners General Partner Dana Stalder, who will join GOGII's board as of this round. "Customer response to the textPlus app is higher than that of any competitor in the market we have seen thanks to its unprecedented features - and advertisers eager to reach this market are catching on quickly."

Since launching the textPlus app in June 2009, GOGII has taken several major steps to bring texting to a new level. This November, textPlus debuted username "text addresses," which allow anyone in the U.S. with a mobile phone to start a text conversation with their friends using textPlus by simply texting a friend's username to 60611. textPlus with usernames also provides users worldwide the ability to send messages app-to-app anywhere in the world for free. textPlus will soon make it possible to create usernames for entire groups, or communities, of users.

textPlus has proven to be tremendously popular with consumers. To date, the textPlus app has been downloaded almost 3 million times, reaching over 9 million people, with over 300 million messages sent using the service since June. And while only the top 5% of applications in the Apple App Store reach 100,000 unique monthly visitors, textPlus exceeded that by over 7 times in its second month of release.

About GOGII (go-jee)

GOGII provides customers the next generation of text messaging through its flagship product, textPlus, a feature-rich, third-party text messaging application. The company was founded in 2008 by the three founders of JAMDAT Mobile, the leading mobile entertainment publisher that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006.

About Matrix Partners

Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for over three decades. The firm has delivered several of the industry's top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners operates in the United States, India and China. The firm has been fortunate to be a part of the creation of game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Aruba Networks (Nasdaq: ARUN), JBoss (Red Hat), Netezza (NYSE: NZ), SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), Starent Networks (Nasdaq: STAR), Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq: SCMR) and Veritas Software (Symantec).

About Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in over 500 ventures, including AOL, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, VeriSign and Xilinx. KPCB portfolio companies employ more than 250,000 people. More than 150 of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public. In 2008, the firm launched the iFund to invest in mobile applications on the iPhone platform in collaboration with Apple. The firm has offices in Menlo Park, California; Beijing, China; and Shanghai, China.

http://www.gogii.com

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Related Series B Round Press Releases

Livemocha Raises $8 Million in Series B Funding

Bellevue, WA (PRWEB) December 22, 2009

Livemocha (http://www.livemocha.com)], the worlds largest language learning community, today announced that the company has raised $ 8 million in a Series B financing round led by August Capital, with participation from existing investor Maveron.

Livemocha is the leading language learning site worldwide, with over 4.8 million registered members from over 200 countries. Livemocha offers free and premium online learning courses for over 30 languages, led by the award-winning Livemocha Active English.

Livemocha offers a highly effective online learning experience that has quickly attracted a large and active global community. Social, interactive lessons include practice with native speakers for natural development of practical language skills. Specific revenues are undisclosed but growing rapidly, with customers in 97 countries paying for premium products and services.

This latest round brings the total funds raised to date by Livemocha to $ 14 million, and will be applied to accelerate platform innovation and new partnership launches planned for the next 6-12 months.

Closing a significant round of funding is acknowledgement of our progress and underscores the large, disruptive potential of Livemocha, said Shirish Nadkarni, CEO and co-founder of Livemocha. We are excited and well-positioned to realize a very ambitious vision for the future of language learning.

Howard Hartenbaum, General Partner from August Capital, has joined Amy Errett of Maveron on Livemochas Board of Directors. The company's Series A was led by Maveron in December 2007.

About Livemocha

Livemocha is a Seattle-based company that is redefining language learning by combining dynamic online courses in over 30 languages with the world's largest community of native language speakers. Since launching in September 2007, Livemocha has grown to over 4.8 million members, underscoring the strong demand for an engaging, collaborative approach to language learning. There are currently over 375 million people wanting to learn a language worldwide, and the market is currently estimated to be over $ 80 billion, fueled by rapid globalization, immigration and travel.

For more information about Livemocha, please visit http://www.livemocha.com.

About August Capital

Founded in 1995, August Capital has funded an extraordinary group of entrepreneurs who have built significant, long-term value across the full range of information technologies. These companies represent an aggregate market capitalization of well over $ 250 billion and generate in excess of $ 75 billion in annual revenue around the world. This success is a testament to the entrepreneurs themselves, as well as the fundamental technologies they have created. The partners at August Capital were the earliest investors in a number of ground breaking technology companies, including Microsoft, Intuit, Seagate, Sun, Skype, Compaq, Symantec, Sybase, Atheros, Grand Junction and many more. August Capital is located in Menlo Park, California. For more information, please visit: http://www.augustcap.com.

About Maveron

Maveron is a leading venture capital firm based in Seattle, Washington. Dan Levitan and Howard Schultz founded Maveron in January 1998 with the goal of building a firm that would be recognized as the premier financial and strategic partner to leading consumer-based businesses. Maveron's mission is to partner with entrepreneurs in the creation of extraordinary companies in order to generate outstanding financial returns. Current representative Maveron investments include fast-growing consumer companies, such as Potbelly Sandwich Works, Pinkberry, Altius Education, VideoEgg and Livemocha. Monetized investments include eBay, Capella Education Company, Shutterfly, Cranium (acquired by Hasbro), Qsent (acquired by TransUnion), Quellos (acquired by Blackrock), Good Technology (acquired by Motorola) and lucy activewear (acquired by VF Corporation). Maveron has approximately $ 750 million under management and 23 active portfolio companies nationwide. For more information, please visit: http://www.maveron.com.

Contact:

Livemocha

Clint Schmidt, 206-422-2693

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Flurry Raises $7 Million Series B to Accelerate Mobile Analytics Firm's Rapid Growth - InterWest Partners leads round of financing

San Francisco and New York (PRWEB) January 12, 2010

Flurry, Inc., a leading mobile application analytics provider, today announced it has closed a Series B financing round of $ 7 million. Led by top-tier venture capital firm InterWest Partners, the round included existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and Draper Richards.

InterWest general partner, Doug Pepper, also joins the Flurry board of directors. In addition to a decade of technology investment experience focused on digital marketing and advertising, Mr. Pepper brings board level experience with relevant companies including Marketo, INVIDI Technologies, Brand.net and Offerpal Media, as well as professional experience with Amazon.com.

Since launching its service in January 2009, Flurry has quickly emerged as one of the worlds largest mobile application analytics and monetization platforms. The company now tracks over one billion end user application sessions per month across iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices. Over 15,000 developers have chosen to integrate Flurry Analytics within their applications, which have been downloaded to more than 80% of all iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices.

Smartphone application download growth is skyrocketing like nothing in recent consumer tech history, dwarfing even early Internet adoption, said Flurry chief executive officer, Simon Khalaf. With its significant reach, Flurry is positioned to play a significant role in leveraging the measurement of consumer behavior to accelerate the sale of applications and virtual goods.

The financing will be used to aggressively build out new services that increase application developer revenue, hire new employees and scale its infrastructure. Flurry AppCircle, currently in private beta, is the first of a series of revenue generating services designed to use data to intelligently target consumers and increase sales in the App Store.

Flurry has built one of the industrys most widely deployed and powerful tools for measuring and monetizing mobile application usage, said Doug Pepper, general partner, InterWest Partners. "This is an exciting time of innovation and growth for the mobile industry and we're thrilled to be involved with the passionate and experienced team at Flurry.

With Apples announcement last week that more than three billion apps have been downloaded, the App Store is growing at a rate 15 times faster than the iTunes store over the same time period. Piper Jaffray senior analyst, Gene Munster forecasts that Apple will sell an additional 36 million iPhones in 2010, a 40 percent increase from 2009 estimates. Additionally, more than 50 Android handsets, including the recently launched Google Nexus One, are expected to ship in 2010. Looking forward, Frost & Sullivan forecasts that Android OS devices will hold the third largest market share of the smartphone market by 2014, among the fastest rates of growth for a mobile product in the history of the mobile industry.

To learn more about the Flurry Analytics and Flurry AppCircle, please visit http://www.flurry.com.

About Flurry

Recently merged with Pinch Media, Flurry is among the largest smartphone application analytics and monetization platforms in the world, now tracking more than 80% of all consumers across iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices. Each month, Flurry tracks over one billion end user sessions per month across iPhone, Android, Blackberry and J2ME devices.

Flurry Analytics, its flagship service, is designed to help developers make better applications to increase retention and grow revenue. Flurry AppCircle, now in private beta, is designed to help developers acquire the most valuable users, faster and for less money. Flurry is venture backed with offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please visit http://www.flurry.com.

About InterWest Partners

For 30 years InterWest (http://www.interwest.com) has partnered with exceptional entrepreneurs to build winning technology and life sciences companies. With more than 200 years of combined operating and investing experience, InterWests team has raised $ 2.8B, completed more than 70 IPOs, and participated in nearly 60 upside acquisitions. As the firm invests InterWest X, a $ 650M fund, InterWest continues to believe that providing capital is just the beginning of a long-term collaboration with entrepreneurs to turn their vision into a thriving company.

The firm's past successful investments in information technology include: CIENA (CIEN), Copper Mountain Networks (CMTN), Crystal Semiconductor (acquired by Cirrus Logic, CRUS), Cyrix (CYRX; acquired by National Semiconductor (NSM), Lightera (acquired by CIENA), PlaceWare (acquired by Microsoft, MSFT), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse, VTSS), Silicon Graphics (SGI), Stratacom (STRM; acquired by Cisco, CSCO) and Xilinx (XLNX).

Note to Editors

iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and J2ME are trademarks of their respective companies. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

Media contact:

Peter Farago

VP Marketing

Flurry, Inc.

peter(at)flurry(dot)com

510-461-4450

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Find More Series B Round Press Releases

Spartoo.com, the European Leader in Internet Footwear Sales, Secures 12 Million in Funding to Accelerate European Growth

Paris, France and London, UK (PRWEB) January 12, 2010

Spartoo.com, the European leader in internet footwear sales, has closed on a 12 million Series B round of financing to accelerate growth and reinforce its N

TabbedOut Secures $2.05 Million Series A Round Of Funding From NEA For National Expansion

Austin, TX (PRWEB) October 5, 2010

TabbedOut, the secure and innovative way to pay your bar or restaurant tab with a smartphone, today announced that the company has secured $ 2.05 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) in a Series A round of venture funding.

The funding, which follows a $ 750,000 angel round, brings the companys financing to $ 2.8 million in total. The round will be used to extend lighthouse markets onto a national stage, continue to build out the companys hospitality partner network, and enhance TabbedOuts breakthrough mobile payment technology.

The TabbedOut product works with existing point-of-sale systems removing the need for merchants to purchase any new equipment while patrons are able to checkout without presenting a credit card and receipts are emailed to them afterwards.

NEA was an obvious fit because of their expertise in IT, mobile and security and were confident our collective efforts will bring TabbedOut to a city near you soon said Rick Orr, Co-Founder and CEO of TabbedOut. Weve already seen great adoption in our test markets and are looking forward to expanding into other areas where mobile payments will make life easier for merchants and their patrons.

As part of the funding agreement, NEA General Partner Scott Sandell and Venture Partner Jimmy Treybig will join the TabbedOut Board of Directors. Sandell focuses on information technology investing and has led NEAs investments in industry-leading companies like Salesforce.com, WebEx and Data Domain. Treybig, a Silicon Valley pioneer with extensive security expertise, is the founder and former CEO of Tandem computers and also served as Chairman of the Board of ClearCommerce and Whole Security.

In the rapidly expanding mobile payments market, TabbedOut is emerging as a leader in both innovation and security, said Sandell. The team has a tremendous depth of experience in security software and card payments, garnered at leading companies like Whole Security, MPOWER Labs and Symantec. Were thrilled to partner with TabbedOut as they scale their operations and really deliver on the potential of this incredible technology.

TabbedOut also recently brought on Kevin McKeand, former VP of Strategic Account Sales for AT&T Wi-Fi Services (acquired as Wayport in 2008), to serve as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He is responsible for building the TabbedOut sales team across the U.S. and selling to new hospitality partners.

About TabbedOut:

TabbedOut is a product of ATX Innovation, a company focused on changing the payments paradigm for the hospitality industry in order to increase convenience and security. TabbedOut saves time and increases security measures in a fraud-prone industry while providing a better customer experience. The company is actively seeking additional hospitality partners to further enable its expansion.