Northwest companies AudienceScience, Treehouse, Donuts, and EveryMove were among those raising significant capital in early April, while business travel companies Egencia and Concur paired up for a new offering, Zipwhip introduced texting for business landlines, and new groups formed for Seattle-area women entrepreneurs and location-based marketers. Read on for details:
—Digital marketing technology provider AudienceScience has raised $9.2 million through an equity offering. The Bellevue, WA, company has another $6.3 million to sell, according to an SEC filing. AudienceScience provides marketers with data and media strategies for targeted advertising campaigns.
—Portland technology education company Treehouse has raised $7 million in a Series B round led by Washington Post Company subsidiary Kaplan Ventures. Social+Capital Partnership, a Palo Alto, CA-based fund, also participated. Treehouse founder and CEO Ryan Carson used the funding to underpin an argument that “you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley (or a ‘startup hub’) in order to raise money for your startup or be successful.” The company has now raised more than $12 million, Carson writes on his blog, with earlier investors including Kevin Rose, Greylock, and Mark Suster. Carson says the company is on track for $5 million in annual revenue, and has more than 55 employees, at least some of whom were attracted and retained by the company’s four-day workweek.
—Donuts, the Bellevue, WA-based domain name registry company, has secured undisclosed additional funding from private equity firm Generation Partners in the form of a Series B equity investment, and from Columbia Partners Private Capital. The funding better positions Donuts to compete for and market new generic top-level domains (gTLDs)—such as .book or .pizza—that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is opening. Donuts applied for 307 new gTLDs last spring.
—EveryMove, the Seattle company making a platform to reward people for healthy activities, raised $3.5 million in a Series A-1 financing, adding to $2.6 million raised last spring. Investors include BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Sandbox Industries, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska. It also launched an Android version of its app, which tracks physical activity, converting it to points that lead to rewards from employers, health insurers, and other participating companies. The funding will allow EveryMove to expand nationally, and increase marketing.
—Seattle-area business travel companies Egencia and Concur (NASDAQ: CNQR) have formed a partnership to integrate corporate travel booking and expensing. Travel managers in the U.S. and Canada using Egencia, the corporate travel booking unit of Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE), can automatically add relevant details to Concur Expense management software through a joint application. It will be available to customers in other markets later this year.
—Zipwhip, the Seattle company describing itself as “the world’s first text carrier,” is rolling out a service to enable existing business landlines for text messaging. The company says this cloud-based texting service—which would be purchased in addition to existing voice services—allows companies to use their legacy phone numbers and hardware to communicate with customers via SMS. We profiled Zipwhip last summer.
—Women entrepreneurs have a new forum in Seattle beginning this week. Women 2.0 will begin holding Founder Friday networking events, which highlight local female company founders. Microsoft is sponsoring the event series locally. The first event is this Friday evening on the company’s Redmond campus.
—A Seattle chapter of the Location Based Marketing Association (LBMA) is forming to bring together professionals trying to push messages to consumers based on where they are. The trade group, which has goals including increased public acceptance of LBM as well as sharing best practices, is partnering in Seattle with Razorfish, VenueLabs, and PointInside for its initial event later this month.
—RealNetworks games division leader Matt Hulett resigned earlier this month, effective May 1, to take “an executive opportunity out of state,” according to an SEC filing.
