Bump Raises $16M

Bump Technologies, maker of software that allows mobile device users to initiate file exchanges by physically bumping their devices, announced in a blog post tonight that it has closed a $16 million second round of funding—a big increase over its first round of roughly $3 million, raised in October 2009. Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz led the new round, which was joined by existing investor Sequoia Capital and micro-VC operations Sherpalo (led by Ram Shriram) and SV Angel (led by Ron Conway). Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, of Netscape fame, has joined the board of the former Y Combinator startup. “This round of financing solidifies our priorities to build a world-class engineering and product organization here in Silicon Valley,” CEO David Lieb said in the blog post. (Xconomy interviewed Lieb for a profile article and video published last September.) “We started Bump because we were frustrated that our phones were so useless for directly interacting with those around us, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible when it comes to valuable mobile interactions in the real world.”

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/