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Foodspotting eats up $750K seed roundAngel investors Aydin Senkut and Dave McClure back the Internet company
- Foodspotting Eats up $750,000 Seed Round
Foodspotting, which lets people find and share their favorite foods using pictures, has closed a $750,000 seed round. Investors include former Google executive Aydin Senkut and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups fund, Path CEO Dave Morin, Google product manager for location-based services Steve Lee and Dipity founder Derek Dukes, according to GigaOm. Alexa Andrzejewski, Foodspotting’s CEO, said the site is not a social network for foodies. “We’re primarily a local guide, more like Yelp or Citysearch,” she wrote in an email to peHUB.
- Week in deals, Aug. 16, 2010
Summary of tech companies and other startups in North America that raised venture financing in the past week
- 5 questions with Chris Douvos
Managing director for Investment Fund for Foundations talks micro VC funds
- Medialets Raises $6 Million
Medialets, a New York-based ad technology platform for mobile applications, has raised $6 million in Series B funding. Existing backer Foundry Group led the round, and was joined by DFJ Gotham, 500 Startups and Chris Saridakis. The company previously raised $4 million.
- New angel funds a sign of the times
Mike Maples closes his new “super-angel” fund as Dave McClure aims to do the same
- Q&A on Micro-VC Funds, With Someone Who Actually Invests In Them
We've spent a lot of time lately discussing micro-VCs, including last week's news on Floodgate ($73m fund close) and 500 Startups (new $30m fund being raised). So I spent some time discussing the phenomenon with Chris Douvos, who invests in mico-VC funds through his role as a managing director with The Investment Fund for Foundations http://www.tiff.org : How long have you been investing in micro-VC funds, or super-angel, funds?? We’ve been active in this space since around 2005, and have invested over time in several of the archetypal managers. Who are those archetypical managers? Well, the main one is someone we actually haven’t given money to: Ron Conway. He’s created a fantastic ecosystem. But we’ve backed some of the people who have taken types of things he does and refined them a bit. For example, one of our earliest investments was in First Round. We think those guys have brought an aggressively thoughtful approach to the challenges of investing in seed-stage companies. I love the O’Reilly AlphaTech guys, whose differential is that they’re leveraging the larger O’Reilly ecosystem. In the case of O’Reilly or First Round or Floodgate, they’ve created brands around themselves that magnetizes interesting people. That helps them punch above their weight.
- Q&A on Micro-VC Funds, With Someone Who Actually Invests In Them
We've spent a lot of time lately discussing micro-VCs, including last week's news on Floodgate ($73m fund close) and 500 Startups (new $30m fund being raised). So I spent some time discussing the phenomenon with Chris Douvos, who invests in mico-VC funds through his role as a managing director with The Investment Fund for Foundations http://www.tiff.org : How long have you been investing in micro-VC funds, or super-angel, funds?? We’ve been active in this space since around 2005, and have invested over time in several of the archetypal managers. Who are those archetypical managers? Well, the main one is someone we actually haven’t given money to: Ron Conway. He’s created a fantastic ecosystem. But we’ve backed some of the people who have taken types of things he does and refined them a bit. For example, one of our earliest investments was in First Round. We think those guys have brought an aggressively thoughtful approach to the challenges of investing in seed-stage companies. I love the O’Reilly AlphaTech guys, whose differential is that they’re leveraging the larger O’Reilly ecosystem. In the case of O’Reilly or First Round or Floodgate, they’ve created brands around themselves that magnetizes interesting people. That helps them punch above their weight.