OpenCandy Gets $5M in Round Led by Google Ventures

OpenCandy co-founder Darrius Thompson confirms in an e-mail that the San Diego-based startup, which operates a kind of online marketplace for open-source software, just raised $5 million in a series B round of venture funding, which was reported today by TechCrunch.

The new $5 million round was led by Google Ventures, and in a winking sort of way, Thompson tells me, “I think you hinted in the past that you could see us having a deep relationship with Google. Good insight!” Also participating in the round are existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech. (The company raised $3.5 million in its first round.)

As I reported previously, OpenCandy operates a Web-based network that allows a software publisher to advertise its product—and to offer it as optional download—while a user is installing another program available through OpenCandy’s website. During the installation, OpenCandy’s system suggests other software that the user might want, with the idea of helping software publishers to distribute their products and services. OpenCandy also emphasizes that its system is consumer friendly because users must actually choose to download the optional software offer. It’s not an automated process that installs additional software whether you want it or not.

So how will OpenCandy use its proceeds?

Thompson says in his e-mail: “It’s all about scaling now. As mentioned… scaling in our current market and segment and then beyond. A good portion of the proceeds would be utilized to hire great individuals that can help us scale in a way that reinforces and builds upon the great foundational culture we’ve set. Finding great talent in San Diego is a key focus for us right now.”

Thompson also says he’ll have more to say in a few weeks, so stand by.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.