October 31, 2011 : Comments (4)
Google+ Updates Android App, Adds New Design And Other Features
Funding
Zynga Co-founder Andy Trader Files Lawsuit After Company Blocks Sale Of Stock
Former Zynga executive Andy Trader has filed a lawsuit against the company after they blocked his attempts to sell $12.8 million of his private Zynga shares to Alpha Investment, an Abu Dhabi firm. Last summer Trader, who left Zynga for undisclosed reasons, turned to SecondMarket, a company that helps people buy and sell shares of privately owned companies among... Read more »
Yelp Makes Plans To Go Public
Yelp, the geosocial app and website which gained popularity from its user-based restaurant reviews, have decided to go public. After declining another round of funding, they're considering an IPO. Last year Jeremy Stoppelman, Chief Executive Officer, said that the company likely wouldn't go public for several years. It declined buyout offers from both Google and... Read more » John Schappert Leaves Electronic Arts for Zynga
John Schappert, the Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts, has left the renowned video game publishers for Zynga, the start-up behind the popular Facebook games FarmVille and CityVille. The video game veteran will join the company's senior management team as Chief Operating Officer working along side Chief Executive Mark Pincus, Executive Vice President Owen Van... Read more »
Social Marketing Software Company ExactTarget Raises $30M, Boosts Revenue By 52 Percent
Interactive marketing software company ExactTarget announced Monday that it has raised $30 million in a funding round and that record performance was continued in the first three months (Q1) of 2011, helping it to increase revenue by 52 percent over the previous year. The funding round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures with Battery Ventures, Scale Venture... Read more » Rewards-Based Social Shopping Service TreatFeed Raises $5.4M
TreatFeed, a new rewards-based social shopping service, has raised $5.4 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). The application encourages shoppers to earn rewards by sharing deals among their friends word of mouth-style on social networks including Facebook and Twitter, and encouraging those friends to carry out shopping... Read more »
Social Concert Ticket Company Ticketfly Receives $12M In Funding
Ticketfly, a company that aims to make concert and event ticket buying much more social, has revealed that it has raised $12 million in a Series B funding round. The company helps concert venues and promoters to create websites for concerts and to build a presence on social networking services. Customers can use the Ticketfly platform to manage all of their... Read more » Mutual Fund Company T. Rowe Price Invests $190.5M In Facebook, $72M in Zynga
T. Rowe Price, a mutual fund company based in Baltimore, says that it has invested $190.5 million in social networking giant Facebook. The investment equates to $25 per share for stock that has been distributed across 19 funds, according to The Wall Street Journal. It was not clear what value that investment, which was revealed in recent filings, puts on... Read more » Lockerz Raises $30M In A New Round Of Funding
Social commerce platform developer Lockerz has raised $30 million in its current fund-raising campaign, according to TechCrunch, who spotted an SEC filing. The filing indicates that this is part of a larger round of funding and the company could bring in as much as $45 million. This will add to the $30 million Lockerz previously raised from investors. Lockerz is... Read more » SocialFlow Finalizes Twitter Partnership, $7M Round Of Funding
The social media optimization platform SocialFlow has just finalized a partnership with the social media juggernaut Twitter on Thursday, which will give the marketing company full access to Twitter's Firehose so they can analyze all the 155 million tweets that Twitter handles every day. SocialFlow also announced that it has raised $7 million in a round of Series... Read more » Social Messaging App Yobongo Talks Up $1.35M Angel Funding Round
Yobongo, one of the newest social messaging apps on the block, has closed a funding round of $1.35 million -- just 20 days after going live on iPhone. Yobongo differs from the likes of group messaging apps Kik, GroupMe and HeyWire in that, instead of providing a way to keep in contact with a small group of friends, it encourages you to get to know new people based... Read more » 
