• uTest

  Participated · Series E · Jan 2014

  uTest, rebranding its main product as Applause, provides in-the-wild app testing through a large community of testers. It pairs that testing capability with app store analytics and proprietary tools, positioning itself as a dominant player in app quality. The company plans to expand its in-the-wild testing services, target major brands, grow distribution channels, and add offerings such as training, certifications, test tool reviews, career advice, job boards and events. Management says the funding will enable broader services and tools to deliver 360° app quality. With the new capital it also intends to ramp up M&A and pursue roll-up opportunities in the app-testing market. The company is Boston-based and has funding-to-date of more than $80 million. uTest provides in-the-wild crowd-sourced testing services across the full development lifecycle for web, desktop, and mobile applications, including functional, security, localization, and usability testing. The company leverages a community of more than 45,000 testers across 180 countries to test apps on real devices under real-world conditions. Its customers include global brands such as Google, Microsoft, Groupon, AOL and the BBC. uTest plans to use new capital to launch tools to aid developers and to open additional U.S. offices in Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas. The company also said part of the funding will be used for mergers and acquisitions. Founded in 2007, uTest has secured more than $37 million since inception. uTest operates an on-demand software QA marketplace that connects customers with a vetted community of 30,000+ professional testers across more than 160 countries. Customers specify testing requirements and uTest handpicks testing teams based on location, language, OS, browser, mobile device and carrier. Testers are paid based on the number and type of bugs they find, with market pricing for bug finds that fluctuates by demand and remaining bugs. The company offers functional testing and has recently launched usability testing and load testing services. uTest plans to use new funding to expand its tester base and move into additional service categories. The company said the latest round produced a significant increase in its valuation and brought total funding to $20 million. uTest operates a software‑as‑a‑service platform that lets companies assemble teams of testers and pay per bug found or useful feedback. The platform positions itself as an alternative to traditional QA outsourcers and freelance marketplaces by offering crowd‑sourced testing teams. uTest reports a community of almost 12,000 software professionals across 144 countries. Its customers include both cash‑conscious startups and larger enterprises; the only named large customer is Constant Contact. The company plans to expand its services into a larger portion of the product cycle and into mobile and usability testing. Financially, uTest completed a $5 million second round and had raised $2.3 million in a first round the prior year. uTest operates a web-based, on-demand QA platform that manages complete testing cycles and connects companies with a community of testers. The platform provides test-case management, selection of target testers by profile and environment, real-time bug reporting, release-maturity statistics, QA coverage and market-readiness metrics. It supports integrations with Bugzilla, Jira and FogBugs and plans to expand support over time. uTest positions its marketplace as an oDesk-like environment where testers are paid on a Pay-per-Bug basis while companies use the management platform for free. The company is actively recruiting testers globally — citing markets such as India, China, Russia, Bulgaria and Estonia — ahead of an official launch expected in early 2008. uTest raised $1.7M to bring the marketplace to market and scale operations.

• Acacia

  Participated · Equity · May 2013

  Acacia Communications provides intelligent transceivers for ultra-high-speed fiber optic transmission to the telecommunications infrastructure industry. The company designs, manufactures and sells optical transponder technology and advanced solutions for coherent 100G, 200G, 400G and beyond transceivers, aimed at reducing development costs, increasing performance and accelerating time to market. Acacia works in collaboration with customers and suppliers to deliver its optical transport and network infrastructure equipment. Founded by Mehrdad Givehchi, Benny Mikkelsen and Christian Rasmussen and led by President and CEO Raj Shanmugaraj, the company is based in Maynard, Massachusetts and also has an office in Hazlet, New Jersey. On May 15, 2013, Acacia raised $20M in funding led by Summit Partners with participation from Matrix Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Egan Managed Capital. The company intends to use the proceeds to expand into multiple markets and to develop and/or acquire core technologies.

• AppNeta

  Led · Series C · Mar 2013

  AppNeta operates a patented, multi-tenant SaaS platform that provides proactive application and network performance visibility from the end-user perspective. The platform ingests and analyzes more than 100 billion unique performance metrics per day and serves more than 1,100 firms, including over 50 of the Fortune 500. AppNeta’s tooling is targeted at IT and Network Ops teams to monitor, diagnose, and optimize the delivery and experience of cloud and SaaS applications. The company plans to accelerate investment into R&D to further enhance its solutions and to expand go-to-market capacity. Management emphasizes continued product innovation and new customer acquisition as primary growth levers. Key operational strengths cited include large-scale metric ingestion and a focus on distributed, cloud-connected digital enterprises. AppNeta provides cloud-delivered services for IT performance management to customers worldwide. Its SaaS product portfolio includes full-stack application and end-user experience monitoring, active application path performance monitoring, application-aware user traffic analysis, automated packet capture and analysis for troubleshooting, and device-level operational metrics for infrastructure health and management. The company is led by CEO Jim Melvin. In June 2012 AppNeta acquired Tracelytics, now known as TraceView, an application performance management solution that offers web developers a holistic view of complex, distributed web applications. The company has raised institutional capital to support its product and market growth. The articles do not disclose revenue or user metrics. AppNeta provides cloud-based, zero-administration network performance management solutions centered on its PathView Cloud service. PathView Cloud is designed to meet performance demands for unified communications, cloud services and virtual service delivery across data center, cloud, remote office and mobile environments. AppNeta launched from the team and technology of Apparent Networks, Inc. and has grown its installed customer base to more than 1,000 managed service provider and enterprise customers in its first year. The company says its service delivers immediate insight and unmatched performance visibility to network engineers and IT outsourcers. The $6.2 million investment will be used to accelerate technology development, expand service capabilities, and support product expansion with a responsive, customer-driven approach.

• Healthrageous

  Participated · Series B · Oct 2012

  Healthrageous operates a device-agnostic digital health management platform that aggregates biometric data from fitness trackers, glucose monitors and other devices and combines it with user preferences to prevent and manage chronic conditions. After onboarding the platform identifies users' risk for conditions like diabetes and hypertension, helps users design personal health plans and goals, and provides a virtual coach that sends personalized notifications and guidance (for example, “time to take your insulin!”). The platform visualizes aggregate biometric data to reveal connections between activities and health metrics and supports tailored recognition and incentive programs, including cash rewards and social competition, to boost engagement. Healthrageous applies machine learning and analytics on aggregated user data to identify patterns of success and deliver more effective recommendations. The company plans to deepen integrations with device APIs and improve its analytics and machine-learning capabilities to scale product functionality and engagement. Financially, Healthrageous raised a $6.5M Series B and has received over $15M in total funding to date. Healthrageous develops a biometric device and a Personal Health Intelligence Platform that gathers and securely transmits data such as blood pressure, blood glucose, and physical activity. The company offers its solutions to large employers, health plans, health providers, and consumer health and wellness organizations. Its solutions are based on technologies developed at the Center for Connected Health, a division of Partners HealthCare. The Center for Connected Health was founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, teaching affiliates of Harvard Medical School. According to SEC filings, Healthrageous raised $2.5 million in an equity funding. The article does not provide additional operating metrics or further financial details. Healthrageous offers a personalized health technology platform that supplies self-management tools to help individuals leave unhealthy habits, adhere to medical advice, and embrace healthy lifestyles. The platform, developed and tested at the Center for Connected Health (a division of Partners HealthCare), integrates wireless biometric sensors, smartphones, individualized coaching, incentive programs, and social network support in a real-time interactive environment. Healthrageous bundles these tools to deliver individualized coaching and behavior-change support. The company plans to use new funding to commercialize its platform and expand market reach. The article does not disclose operating metrics such as revenue or users. The company is based in Boston, MA.

• WordStream

  Led · Equity · Jul 2012

  WordStream provides search engine marketing software and services, including its PPC Advisor product that guides marketers through tasks like keyword research, ad optimization, landing page creation, reporting and call tracking. The company pairs its software with a services team that uses PPC Advisor to deliver traffic, clicks and conversions for clients. WordStream serves thousands of customers and employs over 100 staff in Boston. It is led by CEO Ralph J. Folz. The company intends to use the new funding to further invest in its search marketing software and related offerings. WordStream is a Boston, MA-based provider of search engine marketing software and services for small and medium-sized businesses. Founded in 2008 and led by CEO Ralph Folz, it offers paid and free keyword tools and PPC management software. Its core product set includes PPC Advisor and the 20-Minute PPC Work Week, a system of tools and alerts that enables advertisers to optimize PPC campaigns in just 20 minutes a week. The company currently has nearly 1,000 customers. WordStream has raised a total of $16M to date. The latest additional $6M will be used for continued development of PPC Advisor, ongoing expansion of the 20-Minute PPC Work Week, and continued investments in infrastructure. WordStream builds keyword management and search marketing software and offers related services to help businesses create and manage large paid and organic search campaigns. Its productset focuses on automating and productizing various search engine marketing tasks that were previously done via consulting. The company was bootstrapped initially through search marketing consulting while a team of engineers and marketers productized those tasks. Leadership changes in 2008 positioned Larry Kim to focus on marketing and product management while Rob Adler became CEO. No revenue or user metrics are disclosed in the article. An announcement about the new financing was expected to be published the following week.

No current team members are available.