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PageOnce secures $1.5 million in funding

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pageonce.pngPageOnce, the Personal Internet Assistant, announced that it has secured $1.5 million in funding led by Liron Petrushka and Bobby Lent. Petrushka is a serial entrepreneur who founded Commercebid.com, which was acquired by Commerce One. Currently the Managing Partner of Hillsven LLC, Lent was the co-founder of Ariba, the recognized leader in Enterprise Spend Management. PageOnce also announced that Petrushka and Lent have joined the company’s Board of Directors.

PageOnce, currently in private beta, offers consumers a new way to manage their Internet experience and marketers a new way to become a part of the daily lives of their customers. Using its patent-pending technology, PageOnce brings consumers and marketers together.

Originally posted on January 8, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

Cooking.com secures $7 million funding

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cooking.pngCooking.com, a privately-held internet marketplace and community for the kitchen, announced that it has entered into a $7 million loan agreement with ORIX Venture Finance. The venture debt credit facilities will be used by Cooking.com to expand operations, enhance its community content, and support continued acceleration of its private label online programs.

“We are very excited about establishing a long term relationship with ORIX and believe the company will be the ideal financing partner to help us achieve our growth goals in 2008 and beyond,” commented Tracy Randall, Founder and President.

Originally posted on January 2, 2008 @ 11:57 am

Kayak.com secures $196 million funding; announces merger with Sidestep

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kayak.pngKayak.com, the travel search engine, announced the completion of a $196 million financing round. Kayak.com will use this investment to complete a merger with SideStep, Inc. and to pursue a more aggressive worldwide expansion. As part of this transaction, Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital will join Kayak.com’s Board of Directors.

Other participants in the financing round include existing Kayak.com investors General Catalyst Partners and Accel Partners, SideStep investors Norwest Venture Partners and Trident Capital, new investors Oak Investment Partners and Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, and debt lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Gold Hill Capital.

In parallel with the new financing, a subsidiary of Kayak.com will merge with SideStep.com, the Internet’s first travel search company. This transaction combines the two biggest brands in travel search, which would make Kayak.com and its affiliate sites the fifth largest travel brand, with more monthly unique visitors than Priceline, every airline except Southwest, and every hotel and rental car brand.

Kayak.com intends to maintain both the SideStep.com and Kayak.com brands and will develop and promote each site independently, with key SideStep.com personnel joining Kayak.com’s team.

Originally posted on December 28, 2007 @ 8:35 am

AdReady closes $10 Million in funding to fuel growth of self-service advertising platform

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adready.pngAdReady, an innovative advertising technology company, announced today that it has raised $10 million in venture funding led by Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures. Khosla Ventures and current investor Madrona Venture Group also participated in the round.

AdReady launched its flagship offering in mid-October via a web service allows advertisers to customize field-tested online banner ads in minutes for free. Advertisers can then use AdReady’s platform to run and optimize targeted campaigns across the Internet. AdReady also enables publishers and agencies to offer a co-branded version of AdReady’s self-service advertising platform directly to their own clients.

Originally posted on December 17, 2007 @ 8:48 am

EdgeCast Networks secures $6 million in Series B funding

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edgecast.pngEdgeCast Networks, a media content delivery network, announced that it has secured $6 million in Series B financing led by Steamboat Ventures, a venture capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Company. Concurrent with this investment, Scott Hilleboe, Senior Principal of Steamboat Ventures, and Jeffrey Stibel, President of Website Pros, Inc. and former CEO of Web.com, will join EdgeCast’s board of directors. Steamboat will join Series A investors from the Hollywood media community such as Mark Amin, Chairman of CinemaNow as well as Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate Films.

The new funds will be used to expand EdgeCast’s international reach, scale the network for additional capacity, enhance features, and further develop the company’s sales and marketing operations. The latest round brings EdgeCast’s total funding to more than $10 million.

Originally posted on December 11, 2007 @ 10:22 am