Participated · Series A · Jul 2012

Openbucks builds a payment network that enables consumers—especially the unbanked, under-banked, or privacy-sensitive—to pay for online purchases using retailers' gift cards. Its system currently supports cards from Subway, CVS Pharmacy, Burger King, Shell (coming next week), Circle-K and CITGO, and focuses primarily on virtual goods in online games (around 500 games supported). The company reports having “tens of thousands of users” and “hundreds of thousands” of transactions on its network to date. Openbucks is preparing to expand into other verticals and is working on integrations with payment gateways such as First Data and Ceridian Stored Value. Management says future product options may let users pay things like utility bills with gift cards. The startup is based in Santa Clara and Los Angeles and currently has a team of ten, planning to hire five to six more engineers and business development staff by year-end. The new funding will be used to bring more merchants onto the system and to support hiring and product expansion.

Led · Series C · Apr 2012

Eucalyptus Systems develops an open-source, on-premise private cloud computing platform that runs on customers' own servers and sits inside company firewalls. Its software is AWS-API compatible following a partnership with Amazon Web Services, allowing Eucalyptus-powered private clouds to connect with AWS services. The company reports enabling 25,000 cloud starts each year across customers including Aerospace Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Plinga, PUMA, USDA, and USASpending.gov, and runs instances at more than 20% of Fortune 100 companies. Its partner ecosystem has more than doubled to include over 200 cloud and infrastructure automation vendors. Led by former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos, Eucalyptus has nearly tripled headcount in the last 18 months and plans to use the new funding to expand operations and add sales and technical support. To date the company has raised $55.5M in capital. Eucalyptus Systems develops open-source private cloud infrastructure software that enables enterprises to deploy scalable private and hybrid cloud environments. The software also connects to public clouds, including Amazon Web Services. The company is using the new funding to scale development, marketing and sales of its product. Eucalyptus raised $20 million in this round, bringing total capital raised to $25.5 million. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from existing investors Benchmark Capital and BV Capital. MySQL CEO Mårten Gustaf Mickos joined Eucalyptus in March after joining Benchmark Capital as an Entrepreneur in Residence. Eucalyptus Systems develops an open-source platform enabling companies to build private clouds on their own infrastructure and to connect those private clouds with public clouds like Amazon's. The platform launched from research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where CTO Rich Wolski was a computer scientist, and the project is now spinning off from an academic open-source effort into a commercial business. Since launching the platform last year it has been downloaded 14,000 times and is used by other cloud infrastructure companies such as RightScale; it also provides the underlying technology for the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, shipping with every Ubuntu release. The company plans to start by offering services and consultation and eventually sell add-on products. Competitors mentioned include 3tera and Globus Nimbus. The company has just completed a $5.5M first round of funding.

Led · Series A · Jan 2012

Recurly offers a pay-as-you-go subscription billing platform and is based in San Francisco, CA. The company announced a $6 million Series A financing. The round was led by BV Capital and included participation from Polaris Venture Partners, Harrison Metal Capital and FreeStyle Capital. The article does not disclose revenue, user counts, or other operating metrics. The announcement was reported by Massinvestor.

Led · Series A · Jan 2012

Recurly provides subscription management solutions, deep payments expertise, and data-driven billing intelligence to help businesses grow recurring revenue. Its platform manages over 30 million active subscribers for more than 2,100 customers and processes billions of dollars in subscription revenues. The company reported a 38% year‑over‑year increase in active subscriptions under management (June 2019–June 2020) and a 210% year‑over‑year growth in net new bookings. Recurly has expanded global capabilities, enabling payment acceptance in 140+ currencies and multilingual communications in 18 languages. The company has about 240 employees and offices in San Francisco, Boulder, and New Orleans, and was founded in 2010. The new partnership is intended to fund continued investments in Recurly’s technology and platform innovation and to expand its go‑to‑market initiatives. Recurly provides a versatile subscription management platform to manage the entire subscription lifecycle for businesses. It serves more than 2,100 businesses across 42 countries and manages over 20 million active subscribers. The company has 175 employees across offices in San Francisco, Boulder, CO, and New Orleans, LA. Recurly closed $19.5M in funding in this round, bringing total capital raised to over $39M. The round was led by F-Prime Capital with participation from Polaris Partners, Greycroft and Silicon Valley Bank. Recurly plans to use the funds to accelerate product development (including payment optimization and subscriber intelligence), expand sales and marketing, and further develop partnership programs. Recurly provides enterprise-class recurring billing management for subscription-based SaaS, media, mobile, productivity, and publishing businesses. Launched in 2010 by CEO Dan Burkhart, the company’s subscription billing platform is used by about 1,700 customers in 32 countries, processing in 11 local currencies via 22 payment gateways. Clients include AccuWeather, DishDigital, GigaOm, Groupon, JibJab Media, HubSpot, Asana, Optimizely, Twitch.tv, and Zillow. Recurly employed 60 professionals and planned to more than double its headcount by the end of 2015. The company intends to use new funding to further grow the capabilities of its platform, enabling integrations with third-party services and alternative payment methods. Its core product targets enterprise recurring billing management across a range of subscription businesses worldwide. Recurly builds subscription billing systems that let businesses implement recurring payments and integrate with financial software like QuickBooks. Its platform automates upgrades and downgrades, credit card error handling, automated customer communications, and customer retention management. Recurly recently launched a payment gateway tailored to recurring billing that integrates with payment processors’ backends to manage recurring transactions more efficiently. The company powers recurring billing for over 750 small and medium enterprises, including JibJab, Fox News Radio, Justin.tv, SlideShare, GOOD.is, and Weather Underground. The new funding will be used for hiring in engineering and support and for growth expansion. The company has raised a total of $8 million to date. Recurly provides a subscription-billing platform that lets businesses quickly implement recurring payment systems. The service handles tasks such as credit card number storage and integrates with financial software like QuickBooks. The company recently moved to a hybrid fee/usage pricing model—effective July 1—under which new members pay $29 per month plus $0.20 per transaction, with per-transaction fees declining as volume rises. That pricing makes the product less suitable for very small microtransactions but affordable for many businesses. Recurly has over 1,300 companies signed up, with “hundreds” reported as paying customers. It is gaining traction beyond web services, with offline customers such as yoga studios and a law firm using it as a virtual terminal for recurring fees.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2011

HiGear operates a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace focused exclusively on high-end brands such as Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Tesla. The company provides comprehensive liability and collision insurance, member screening (including driving-record and sometimes credit checks), and collects a security deposit to encourage safe use. Owners can rent their cars at roughly 50% off commercial rates; drivers pay a rental fee ($125–600 depending on the car) plus $20–40 per day in rental insurance. The average rental period is about three days, with an average transaction around $410. HiGear currently reports an inventory of 200+ cars and is adding 50+ vehicles per month. The company is expanding geographically, launching in Los Angeles on November 1 and planning five additional markets, including Portland and San Diego, by year-end.