• Netpulse

  Participated · Series C · Jul 2012

  Netpulse develops mobile apps and software that integrate entertainment, workout tracking and virtual scenery with gym and cardio equipment for fitness clubs. The company focuses on providing a sophisticated mobile experience to engage club members and help clubs acquire new customers. Netpulse recently launched a suite of mobile acquisition products and expanded into new regions around the globe. Management says the company will use the latest funding to develop new features and accelerate global expansion and deployment of advanced products. Netpulse reports its customer base has increased by 450 percent and this investment is its first announced funding since acquiring Club Apps in 2014 for an undisclosed sum. The company has a pattern of raising similar funding amounts roughly every two years, having raised $15.6M in 2012 and $18.6M in 2014. Netpulse provides a digital engagement platform that connects health clubs to internet-connected touchscreen cardio equipment, member fitness tracking devices, sensors and apps to deliver engagement, measurement and monetization of members’ fitness activity inside and outside the club. The company partners with eight of the top nine commercial manufacturers that produce fitness equipment found in clubs, as well as club management software systems, fitness app and device makers, and industry service providers. Netpulse-enabled products and mobile applications are deployed in thousands of clubs in over 30 countries, including Equinox, Crunch Fitness, Gold’s Gym, Retro Fitness, top universities, corporate fitness centers and YMCAs. Led by Co-Founder and CEO Bryan Arp, the company is based in San Francisco, CA. Netpulse said it will use the new funds to further accelerate growth, advance development of its product platform, and introduce new integrations and services for both club operators and members. John Gardner from Nokia Growth Partners will join Netpulse’s board in conjunction with the funding. Netpulse provides a personalized media platform that lets exercisers enjoy media, virtually run and bike through famous landscapes, compete in events, and track and share progress via the screens on fitness equipment. The platform is integrated with commercial fitness-equipment manufacturers and is also available to consumers outside health clubs through mobile devices and home fitness products. Led by co-founder and CEO Bryan Arp, the company focuses on engaging active-lifestyle users through interactive content and social features. The company announced a new funding round in July 2012, which supports its continued product development and partnerships with equipment makers. Netpulse emphasizes expanding its consumer-facing availability beyond health clubs into mobile and home markets. No operating metrics (revenue/users) were disclosed in the article. Netpulse is an interactive media platform designed for integration into fitness equipment. Its core product is an interactive entertainment platform and screen for cardiovascular machines like treadmills and ellipticals that offers live HD television, a touch-screen interface, on-demand videos and music, iPod/iPhone connectivity, and personalized workout data. Netpulse raised $3.1 million in a Series A led by Javelin Venture Partners with DFJ Frontier participating, and will use the funding to further develop the platform. The company's screen had not yet been launched in fitness centers at the time of the article. Netpulse plans to roll the screen out to various gyms later in the year.

• Stipple

  Participated · Seed · Nov 2010

  Stipple provides technology that layers identifying information onto photos, letting publishers and brands tag images with links to other media, product pages, or citations. Its product enables publishers, marketers and retailers to turn images into advertisements and micro‑storefronts, and publishers/developers earn affiliate and ad revenue as audiences interact with Stipple‑powered photos. The company reports rapid scale in image tagging — tagging 12 million images in one November month, more than 80 million by the end of the reported month, a current rate above 1 million images per day, and a goal of over 100 million accurately tagged images by year‑end. Hundreds of brands, including Nike, L’Oreal, Zappos and Nordstrom, use Stipple to tag tens of millions of images per month. Stipple also integrated with Twitter Cards to enable interactive, in‑stream experiences that let users view product info, videos and purchase links without leaving Twitter. The company emphasizes automated tagging and ownership/attribution controls that reconnect images to original owners and give publishers visibility into image usage. Stipple is an advertising startup that enables publishers to label and share people, places and things in images so those images can be monetized through commerce or advertising. The platform lets readers buy tagged items in photos and competes with companies like Luminate and ThingLink. Stipple says it has the largest corpus of tagged images on the web and is adding 1 million new images per month. It reports 4,000 active publishers and more than 3 billion monthly pageviews. The company plans to use the new funding to grow the team and improve product with a focus on mobile commerce. The next version of Stipple is scheduled to open to the public in mid-June. Stipple offers free tools to label, share and monetize pictures on the Web. Once a photo is labeled, Stipple connects labels to real-time information, advertising or product offers. The company recently launched a People Dots feature that enables labeling of people in any photo on the Web, not just those hosted on social networks. At launch it announced partnerships with Six Apart, JIVE Label Group, Atlantic Records and E.W. Scripps Company. Three months after launching, Stipple raised a $2 million seed round co-led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Mike Maples' FLOODGATE. The company counts celebrity and angel investors among its backers.

• 7 Degrees

  Led · Series B · Oct 2010

  7 Degrees built a mature graph database and launched PeopleMaps in October 2009 as the first application to leverage that technology. PeopleMaps automatically searches a user’s contacts from Outlook, LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail and Yahoo while also searching public Internet sources. The application’s graph engine analyzes the aggregated data to determine connection paths to any person or company and can pull in public bios. The product is positioned for CRM use—helping salespeople discover key connectors and prioritize pipelines by relationship strength—and is also used by recruiters. Founded in 2007, the company emphasizes its underlying graph technology as the core asset. Financially, the startup has raised a total of $8 million to date. 7 Degrees’ flagship product, PeopleMaps, aggregates contacts from Outlook, LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail and Yahoo and searches public Internet sources to build a graph of personal and professional relationships. Its graph engine analyzes that data to surface connection paths to any person or company and pulls in public bios when available. The company offers a free consumer version and a professional edition optimized for sales teams that integrates with Salesforce via the AppExchange. The CRM-focused app imports contacts into Salesforce, ranks sales prospects by the strength of personal and professional connections, and lets managers assign leads to the salesperson with the most relevant ties. Sales teams can also view maps of each employee’s relationships to tap the organization’s collective network. PeopleMaps’ professional edition is priced at $49 per user per month and the company has received seed backing of $1.2 million.

No current team members are available.