Venture capitalists were eager to back advertising start-ups in India during the second quarter of 2008, according to the Quarterly India Venture Capital Report released by Dow Jones VentureSource, which found that $89 million-nearly 37% of the region’s quarterly investment total-went to five advertising/marketing companies, more than any other sector. Overall, India attracted $238 million in venture investment with 17 deals closed in the second quarter, a 120% increase over the $108 million invested in 12 deals during the same period in 2007.
The data showed that India saw seven second-round deals completed in the second quarter, garnering a record $161 million and exceeding the $118 million that was invested in second rounds in all of 2007. Ten seed and first round deals were also completed during the quarter, accounting for nearly $77 million in venture capital investment. No later-stage deals were completed.
Lotame, a platform enabling targeted advertising to customizable audiences through social media, has closed $13 million in series B financing led by Emergence Capital Partners with continuing participation from previous investors including Battery Ventures and Hillcrest Management.
The new funding will be used to support product enhancements, marketing and business development efforts to address the growing demand for Lotame’s targeted social media advertising technology solutions.
ZocDoc, the Startup that helps users schedule doctors’ appointments online, has raised $3 million from Khosla Ventures (the venture capital firm launched in 2004 by Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla). ZocDoc has 10 employees and will use the money to expand its business in areas like customer service, marketing and geographically, into areas outside of New York.
“We started ZocDoc to improve the patient healthcare experience, because, let’s be honest, it is a pain and frustration that everyone has felt more than once,” said Cyrus Massoumi, CEO and co-founder of ZocDoc. “The goal is to make patients aware of open appointments for local doctors in real time, anytime, and book those times 24/7 and even minutes before the appointment. Our simple solution addresses a very complex problem that until now had not been solved.”
Photo scanning and restoration service ScanCafe has received $4 million in Series B financing. This round of financing was led by Sigma Partners, a leading early-stage venture capital firm. it also secured an additional $1.5 million in debt for a total round of $5.5 million. ScanCafe will use the funding to add bench strength to the company, invest in new technology and expand its global reach.
ScanCafe is a photo, negative and slide scanning and restoration service that helps people preserve their most precious memories. ScanCafe has revolutionized the digitizing of imagery by enabling people to simply mail in their boxes of photos, slides and negatives without having to spend time pre-sorting them. ScanCafe scans, professionally restores and organizes all images and provides customers with access to a secure online library to view and select the images they’d like to keep.
Lijit Networks, Inc., a company that provides search-powered applications for both individual online publishers and online publisher networks, has closed a $7.1 million series C round of financing, led by Foundry Group.
Existing investors ($900K in series A and $3.3 Million in series B) Boulder Ventures and Colorado Fund I, managed by High Country Venture, also participated in the round. Lijit will use the proceeds from this financing to launch its search-powered ad network, which empowers publishers to sell their own search ad inventory, as well as to expand its offices and employee base.
More than 2,000 publicly traded companies founded between 1972 and 2000 were financed by professional venture capital investors. In 2000, venture capital firms raised a record $104.8 billion, up from $3.1 billion in 1990 (according to Thomson Financial Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association). Clearly, these organizations represent one of the main engines driving innovation and entrepreneurship, especially in U.S. markets where the venture capital concept originated.
Plenty of entrepreneurs were shown the money in 2007, as revealed in Entrepreneur magazine’s 8th annual VC 100 listing measured by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association’s “Money Tree Report.”
The VC 100 listing shows 3,813 deals were closed in 2007 with a total figure of $29.4 billion, the highest yearly investment since 2001. Funding for seed/early stage development rose 21 percent from the year prior, to $6.3 billion. First-time financings were also at a high with a total of $7.2 billion in venture capital funding.
August 22nd, 2008 by Social Guy
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