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Posts Tagged ‘focus-ventures’

Data storage company Pivot3 has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Focus Ventures with existing investors InterWest Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mesirow Financial Capital Partners IX, and Silver Creek Ventures participating. This brings the startup’s total funding to over $75 million.

Pivot3’s storage solutions offer integrated server virtualization for data to enterprise customers. Its RAID-based solutions are generally used to store video surveillance data. The company has over 140 customers including Port of Seattle, the Mall of America, and the City of Trenton. The investment will be used to expand sales operations internationally and for product development.

Data Robotics, a company that creates automated data storage products, has raised $10 million in Series E funding led by Focus Ventures with Greylock Partners, New Enterprise Associates, RRE Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures participating. Data Robotics previously raised $15 million in Series D funding from Greylock Partners, New Enterprise Associates, RRE Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.

The company’ Geoff Barrall says the new funding will be used to produce more inventory and will fuel additional sales and marketing efforts. Data Robotics, which launched in 2006, produces Drobo, a series of self-managing storage products. Drobo products are scalable and designed to meet the data storage needs of small to medium-sized businesses and includes Data Robotics’ BeyondRAID storage technology. Barrall says that the company is seeing strong growth in the enterprise space, with yearly revenue of around $30 million.

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Twitter Lists are rolling out today (although the feature is not quite turned on for everyone yet). The new feature lets users make lists of interesting people on Twitter, grouped together so that they are easy to follow.

But how do you find the best lists? Already, there is an independent directory service which is launching in tandem with Twitter Lists called Listorious. (Warning: it only fully works for people who have Twitter Lists enabled). Listorious offers a curated collection of lists across various categories such as media, humor, marketing, finance, and food. You can see the most popular lists, ranked by how many people follow them. It is also possible to search by tags, or just search lists in general.

So what are some lists you might want to check out? There’s Robert Scoble’s Most Influential In Tech list and another overlapping Tech Pundits list. I like this list of Venture Capitalists on Twitter. And of course, don’t miss out on following the entire TechCrunch Team with one click.

Listorious was developed by Gregory Galant, who is the man behind the Shorty Awards, which goes out to the “best producers of short content.” It is part of his company, Sawhorse Media.

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What recession? We’ve confirmed that startup Delivery Agent has just raised $25 million in Series D funding led by new investor Focus Ventures with T-Venture, Coral Group, Ironwood Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Cardinal Venture Capital participating. This brings Delivery Agent’s total funding up to $60 million.

In a nutshell, Delivery Agent helps TV networks monetize content through two distinct channels. First, the company creates online marketplaces for products and merchandise that are seen on television shows. Delivery Agent has signed on all the major networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and MTV Networks. Similar to GumGum’s ShopThisLook feature, Delivery Agent catalogues products appearing in movies and shows and then creates an e-commerce site where products can be purchases. By outsourcing all e-commerce for products seen on their networks to Delivery Agent, networks are able to monetize their content while keeping their overhead costs low.

Delivery Agent’s second service is coordinating advertising from the brands that manufacture the products that are shown on a networks’ TV shows. Delivery Agent will go through the index of products that will be airing on a show prior to when the episode airs, and then reach out to the brand and offer them the ability to buy an ad package for the show.

Mike Fitzsimmons, Delivery Agent’s founder and CEO, tells me that the new funds will be used to develop “click-to-buy” applications for online video and mobile content. In fact, Delivery Agent will soon launch a partnership with a major cable operator that will allow consumers to click and buy a product they see on TV with their remote control. Fitzsimmons also add that Delivery Agent will be using the funds to pursue international growth, and launch their content-monetization services in markets in Europe and Asia.

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LogLogic, a security and log management firm that helps companies sort though log data and manage their IT systems, has raised $8.8 million in an extended series D round of funding, led by Focus Ventures with Sequoia Capital, Telesoft Partners, Worldview Technology Partners, INVESCO Private Capital, SAP Ventures, CM-CIC Private Equity, Crédit Agricole Private Equity and ELAIA Partners participating. This brings LogLogic’s total funding to $58 million.

LogLogic plans to use the financing to fuel growth into new markets, including database activity monitoring. LogLogic recently acquired security management company, Exaprotect, for an undisclosed amount.

LogLogic offers companies a suite of software products that helps IT departments make sense of logs of IT audits, compliance, threats, and other operational data. Competitors in the secerity management space include RSA, IBM and ArcSight.

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Twitter is crossing mediums to develop a TV show, according to a Variety report. Joining forces with LA-based production companies Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, Twitter plans to launch an unscripted show that will put “ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.”

Variety says the show’s concept was the brainchild of novelist Amy Ephron. Founded by NBC Entertainment exec Ben Silverman, Reveille Productions is known for producing TV hits like ABC’s Ugly Betty and NBC’s The Office. The company was apparently bought by Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine Productions in February 2008 for $125 million.

(Photo credit: Flickr/Vlastula)

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Marin Software, a startup that creates search engine optimization software for advertisers and agencies, has secured $13 million in Series C financing led by DAG Ventures, with Focus Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Amicus Capital participating. Marin received $7.25 million in Series B funding in 2008 led by Benchmark Capital. The company also received $2.5 million in Series A funding from Amicus Capital in 2006.

Marin Software offers a browser application to help advertisers and agencies managing paid search advertising campaigns across Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search sites. Marin’s software is used by Razorfish, ZipRealty and other companies. Marin’s customers spend at least $100,000 per month on paid search campaigns across the major search engines.The company’s main competitors include Kenshoo and Refined Labs.

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