It’s been a while since our last roundup of recent Bay Area technology investing news, so let’s catch up a little. From biggest to smallest:
$400 million—The amount that Pleasanton, CA-based Workday hopes to raise in an upcoming IPO, according to SEC filings released last week. The company builds cloud-based applications for human resources, payroll, accounting, time tracking, procurement, and expense tracking. Workday’s largest venture investors are Greylock Partners and NEA, which own 11 percent and 10 percent of its shares, respectively, but its largest stockholder by far is founder and co-CEO Dave Duffield, with 53.4 percent of shares. Duffield was also the founder of PeopleSoft, acquired by Oracle in 2005 for $10.3 billion.
$40 million—The potential size of a fourth fund being raised by SV Angel, the Palo Alto, CA-based “super angel” fund founded by Ron Conway and Bill Lee, according to an August 30 SEC filing. Through its participation in StartFund—a joint venture with Andreessen Horowitiz, General Catalyst Partners, and Yuri Milner—SV Angel helps to provide every company graduating from the Y Combinator venture incubator program with a $150,000 convertible note.
$28 million—Series B funding collected last week by San Francisco-based ClearSlide, which has built a Web-based tool for sharing sales presentations. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which was joined by existing investors Greylock Partners and Felicis Ventures. The company raised $11 million in Series A funding a year ago.
$25 million—A Series B round raised by Nebula, a Palo Alto, CA- and Seattle-based startup commercializing OpenStack, an open source system for turning data centers into private cloud computing facilities. Comcast Ventures and Highland Capital Partners contributed.
$6.5 million—Initial funding for Qbotix, a new Menlo Park, CA-based startup building robotic tracking systems that keep ground-mounted solar panels aimed at the sun. Such panels can produce up to 40 percent more power than fixed-mount or rooftop systems, the company claims. The funds came from NEA, Firelake Capital, Siemens Venture Capital, and DFJ JAIC.
$1 million—Initial funding for Snappli, a San Francisco- and London-based startup with an app for iOS devices that compresses broadband data to save users from excess data usage charges. Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, and individual investors Alex Zubillaga, Simon Murdoch, and Klaus Hommels contributed to the funding round.
$840,000—Seed funding for San Francisco-based Monogram. Incubated at 500 Startups, the company is building a personal-shopper app for the iPad, with curation provided by leading fashion bloggers. TechCrunch first reported the funding, which came from Quest Venture Partners.
$400,000—The size of an uncapped convertible promissory note provided to San Francisco-based Virool by TMT Investments. Virool helps advertisers place video advertising content across a network of publishing sites. Virool was part of the summer 2012 batch at Y Combinator and has also won backing from 500 Startups, General Catalyst Partners, Plug and Play Ventures, and Thomvest Ventures.
Undisclosed—Method, the San Francisco-based maker of biodegradable home-care products such as dish soap and floor cleaner, has been acquired by Ecover, a Belgian company that makes and distributes similar products in Europe. Together, the two entities will make up “the world’s largest green cleaning company,” according to an Ecover statement. The purchase price was not named.
