• ShareThis

  Participated · Series C · Mar 2013

  ShareThis offers publishers sharing widgets, developer tools, an analytics dashboard detailing social sharing trends, and advertiser tools for targeted campaigns across its network. Its proprietary SQI (Social Quality Index) ranking metric lets publishers compare performance to peers, and the company plans to develop an SQI version for mobile. To unify web and mobile experiences, ShareThis acquired Socialize and will make Socialize’s app solution the new default, bringing in a Social SDK that adds likes, comments, shares and activity feeds to apps. Socialize had grown to 800 apps across 67 million unique devices and just signed its first enterprise contract with Warner Bros.; it had earlier reported 150 live apps and ~10 million end users last spring. ShareThis serves 2.3 million publishers, its tools reach 95% of the U.S. Internet audience each month (over 200 million uniques), grew revenues 155% in 2012 and expanded headcount from 50 to 95. The company plans international expansion in 2013, including European offices and a further headcount increase of two to three dozen. ShareThis offers a single widget that enables readers to share posts by email or by posting to social networks such as Digg, Delicious, MySpace and Newsvine. The widget is compared in the article to AddThis and is used across publisher sites. A newly released version adds publisher analytics so site owners can track usage. The company reports the widget sees over 100 million views per month from more than 26 million unique visitors after launching in November 2007. Despite strong usage, ShareThis has not yet generated revenue. CEO Tim Schigel said the company expects to start generating revenue in 2008 and is exploring options from paid services to advertising. ShareThis provides a sharing button and browser bookmark that opens a pop-out window letting users post articles to a range of social news sites and social networks. Publishers can install the ShareThis button as plugins for WordPress and other blogging platforms and use its tracking service to monitor where users submit posts. The company says more than 27,000 publishers have installed the button, including AllThingsD, Mashable and CrunchGear, and that sites embedding it receive more than 100 million monthly pageviews from over 26 million unique monthly visitors. ShareThis reports rapid early adoption, claiming more than 500 sites join per week since launching two months earlier and noting strong click-through rates for publishers. ShareThis raised $6 million last year from Blue Chip Venture Company, Illinois Ventures, DFJ Mercury, Queen City Angels and RPM Ventures. Tim Schigel led Blue Chip’s investment and has since become the company’s chief executive.

• CENTRI

  Led · Equity · Nov 2012

  Centri Technology is a Seattle-based provider of mobile bandwidth optimization and bandwidth management solutions for mobile network operators. Its flagship product, BitSmartCX, uses patented optimization techniques and byte-level caching to dynamically reduce the amount of data transmitted across the network between devices, the radio network backhaul, and the network core. BitSmartCX can be deployed at network aggregation points, within radio base stations, or on endpoint devices such as smartphones, tablets, smart meters, point-of-sale kiosks, and automobiles. Centri says its solutions help operators intelligently optimize and manage the flow of data in real time, reducing the need to invest in additional network infrastructure and lowering backhaul, spectrum and transport costs. The company completed a $13M Series C financing and intends to use the funds to accelerate global deployment of BitSmartCX and to grow product development, support and sales teams. Centri is led by founder and CEO Vaughan Emery. Centri Technology builds BitSmart, a platform that accelerates mobile data delivery while adding security layers and policy controls for connected devices. The technology targets mobile operators and enterprises, enabling faster data speeds across various devices and allowing implementation of mobile usage policies. Use cases cited include healthcare, where Centri can restrict device access to unapproved content to help meet HIPAA compliance. The company was founded in 2009 and is led by entrepreneur Vaughan Emery; it employs 20 people. Centri recently raised $4.5 million in fresh funding and plans to use the proceeds for product development, strategic partnerships, and hiring. The company previously raised $1.6 million from members of the Alliance of Angels last year. Centri builds technology designed to boost the performance of wireless networks and lower carriers' costs. The company, based in Pioneer Square, plans to launch its technology next week. Centri raised $1.6 million in funding to support its launch. Founder Vaughan Emery previously founded mForce Mobile and served as CEO of Flytrap Security. The engineering team is led by Mike Mackey, a former engineering director at Nuance Communications and Amdocs. Company directors include Dan Rosen, Merril Dean, Eric Kolstad, Wayne Wisehart, Rob Strickland and Christopher Oates.

• Brand Affinity Technologies

  Led · Series D · May 2012

  Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT), founded in 2007 and based in Irvine, CA, builds technology and services to enable celebrity endorsement and consumer engagement through its Fantapper platform. Fantapper, launched in November 2010 and recently updated to Fantapper 2.0, provides real-time access to celebrity and athlete information via proprietary apps and live Twitter and Facebook feeds and enables users to collect, curate and share photos, videos, articles and files. The platform supports over 4,000 signed athletes and celebrities and includes a broad partnership with the MLB Players Association; clients include MLB Players Association, ESPN, Fox Sports, Sony Entertainment, USAA, Tostitos, Pine-Sol, Digitas, AKQA and CBS Outdoor. BAT sells its endorsement and clearance services to brand advertisers and agencies, positioning Fantapper as a one-stop endorsement and media clearance solution. The company announced plans to use new funding to expand and grow the Fantapper service and to drive sales growth within its celebrity endorsement and clearance business. The articles report total funding to date of over $34M. BAT offers a proprietary endorsement-matching engine that evaluates campaign objectives and celebrity brand fit to recommend appropriate athletes, actors and other talent. The platform can search a roster of more than 38,000 celebrities and the company reports more than 3,600 celebrities have signed onto its Endorsement Platform. BAT says its technology compresses typical endorsement deal timelines from roughly six months to about two weeks. The company’s main revenue stream is a service fee advertisers pay to use the platform, and revenues are expected to double this year to $30 million. BAT plans to use new capital to extend its Endorsement technology into music and other celebrity categories and to pursue international expansion. The company was founded by Ryan and Chad Steelberg, who previously founded and sold several companies prior to BAT.

• Koupon

  Participated · Series B · Apr 2012

  Koupon Media is a mobile coupon delivery, fulfillment and analytics platform serving retailers and consumer product brands. The platform delivers offers via QR code, bar code, text message, email and social-media sites and supports fulfillment integration with retailer POS systems. Those integrations provide brands product control and detailed analytics to better determine consumer buying behavior. The company plans to use the newly raised capital to further develop its technology platform and bring it to market. Koupon Media raised $4.5M in a Series B round led by Trailblazer Capital, following a $2M Series A in 2011. Founded in 2011 by T.J. Person and Scott Hutchinson and based in Frisco, TX, the company focuses on mobile couponing solutions. Koupon Media builds a mobile coupon delivery, fulfillment and analytics platform for consumer product brands, delivering single-use coupons via QR code, bar code, text message, email and social-media websites. Its fulfillment platform has been integrated with a variety of retailer point-of-sale (POS) systems and provides brands product control and detailed analytics. The company was founded in 2011 by mobile technology entrepreneurs CEO T.J. Person and Scott Hutchinson and operates from Dallas with additional offices in Chicago. Koupon Media operates the consumer-facing site www.kou.pn for delivering digital coupons to mobile devices. The company raised $2M in a Series A round and intends to use the funding to further develop its technology and bring it to retailers, consumer product brands and marketing agencies. The new capital is intended to support product development and commercial rollout of its POS-integrated fulfillment and analytics platform.

No current team members are available.