As investors showered attention on the latest crop of Seattle TechStars companies last week, other more established Seattle-area tech companies were landing capital from far and near. Meanwhile, Zillow (NASDAQ: [[ticker:Z]]) bought a pair of companies–its fourth and fifth acquisitions in the last two years—to enhance its offerings for real estate and mortgage pros.
—Bellevue-based Limeade will use a $5 million Series B financing announced this morning to grow its wellness software-as-a-service for businesses.
TVC Capital provided the financing and the San Diego-based fund’s co-founder and managing director Steven Hamerslag is joining Limeade’s board. In September, TVC announced a $75 million growth equity and buyout fund.
The company has raised $8.5 million since launching in 2006 and says revenue has grown more than 100% each year for the last three. Limeade wants to “measurably improve well-being in the world”, a refreshingly bold corporate mission. To make money doing so, the company provides multi-platform software to help employees assess and improve their well-being through employer-incentivized programs that encourage exercise, healthy eating and other good habits.
The company’s previous $3.5 million round, closed in January 2010, was funded by angel investors.
—Blue Box, a 9-year-old Seattle company providing Web application hosting and managed services to the likes of MTV and VH1, landed an initial equity investment of $3.5 million in a Series A round led by Seattle’s Voyager Capital and joined by a number of other unnamed individual investors.
Blue Box is profitable and has doubled revenue each year for the last four, Bill McAleer, Voyager’s managing director and a new Blue Box board member, says in a statement.
The company is planning to add an international datacenter to its portfolio “in the near future,” it says.
—Zillow is building out its mortgage services with the acquisition of software maker Mortech, Inc., for $12 million in cash and 150,000 shares of stock. It also added improved communications and collaboration offerings for real estate pros with the acquisition of Buyfolio.
Buyfolio—from husband-and-wife team Susan and Matt Daimler, who were frustrated with the New York City home-buying process—makes an integrated Web and mobile software platform to help real estate agents work with home shoppers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Matt Daimler has worked with a Rich Barton-founded company before—he previously built travel information site SeatGuru.com and sold it to Expedia in 2007.
Mortech’s offering—including a mortgage pricing engine and lead and marketing tools sold on subscription—will help mortgage lenders manage business driven by the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. Mortech, a 25-year-old business with 39 employees, will remain in Lincoln, NE.
