With so much going on in the city’s thriving ecosystem, it is easy to miss some of the happenings in the space. We keep you abreast of a few of things that you may have missed in NYC Tech this week including the fundings, exits, and events. At the end, we have also listed some of the upcoming events this week that you need to be aware of.
CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN SILICON ALLEY THIS WEEK
Content is king edition…
DMG Media, owner of DailyMail.com, is acquiring Elite Daily for undisclosed terms. The Millenial-focused online destination that offers peer-to-peer interactions of world news, finance, sports, culture and all things luxury, had raised $1.5 million in a convertible note from Social Starts, Red Sea Ventures, Vast Ventures, and Greycroft Partners. According to Daily Mail, Elite Daily now boasts 74 million monthly unique visitors, mostly between the ages of 18 and 34.
The Daily Mail is the world’s largest English language newspaper website.
Our friends at NYCEDC are hosting a logo design competition for the city’s official logo for NYC Tech at SXSW this year. The winning entry will appear at SXSW Interactive, on shirts, stickers, and more! The submission deadline is February 11, and designs will be open for public voting via Instagram from February 12-18. Check out nyctechinaustin.com/design for more information and to enter!
Happy Birthday to us…
This week marked the 2nd anniversary of our launch. It’s been a great ride and we are looking forward to what the future brings.
It has been a pleasure to serve the New York tech community and for this we’d like to say thanks!
Mashable, the media site that covers tech, entertainment, and business news, has raised $17 million in a Series B round led by Time Warner Investments, with participation from Social Starts, Michael Lazerow, Kass Lazerow, New Markets Venture Partners, Update Partners and others.
Parse.ly, a leading provider of audience insights for digital publishers, released its new analytics platform this week.
The DreamIt NYC alum offers the first platform that unifies audience insights around growth, engagement and loyalty.
Beyond precise measurement of views, visitors, shares and time, the platform now includes breakouts of on-page attention, mobile devices and visitor retention. Publishers can use this data to identify high-quality long-form content, engaging images/videos, new traffic sources for distribution and audience interest segments that lead to loyalty.
Datadog, the cloud-monitoring platform that helps software developers and web operators understand and turn their IT data into actionable insight and which was covered earlier this month in AlleyWatch, has raised $31 million in Series C funding. The round was led by earlier backer Index Ventures, with participation from RTP Ventures, IA Ventures, RRE Venture, OpenView Venture Partners, and Amplify Partners, and others.
Tripda, the long-distance carpooling platform that is s already operating in 11 countries across Latin America, Asia and the US and which is not yet another taxi service, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Rocket Internet AG and an unnamed New York venture firm.
Columbia Business School announced the creation of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise. The new center, made possible through a transformative endowment gift from Sandra and Tony Tamer, will help develop a new generation of business leaders who understand how management can contribute to enhance and impact society and the environment.
It will serve as the educational, curricular, research, and strategic hub of all social entrepreneurship activities at Columbia.
Giphy, a platform that makes it easy to search and share gifs, has raised $17 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from General Catalyst Partners and earlier investors, including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, betaworks, RRE Ventures, and CAA Ventures.
Here’s a twist: Of the round, $225,000 has been set aside for accredited investors who might be interested in acquiring a stake in the company via the crowdfunding platform, Alphaworks.
The Flatiron School and Teach For America announced that they are teaming up to expand computer science education. The pilot Teach For America – Flatiron Computer Science Education Fellows program will help fill the growing demand for computer science education nationwide.
The program is launching this summer, and CS Education Fellows will:
Learn to code in an intensive two-week Coding Bootcamp at the Flatiron School.
Teach code and gain free access for their school to Flatiron’s proprietary curriculum to deliver CS education programs in their school
To learn more and apply, click here.
MaestroIQ, a recommendation engine app for marketers to help drive app engagement, has raised $1.75 million in seed funding from Foundation Capital, Deep Fork Capital, KEC Ventures, First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, Crosslink Capital, Eniac Ventures, and angel investor Jim Pallotta.
Ebooks streaming subscription service Oyster announced that it’s adding the complete Harry Potter series, including the seven main Harry Potter ebooks and three Hogwarts Library eBooks, to its library, thanks to a partnership with Pottermore.
Oyster is the first and only place you can read every Harry Potter ebook, including the seven main books and the three Hogwarts Library books, all in one place, through your subscription.
To celebrate, Oyster has created an ebook reading experience that offers an unprecedented way to enjoy Harry Potter. Oyster’s Reader Themes will be replaced by designs inspired by Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and readers can tap the Sorting Hat icon to have one chosen at random.
Business news site Business Insider has raised $25 million in new funding in a round led by Axel Springer SE, with participation from earlier investors, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, RRE Ventures, and Institutional Venture Partners.
Taking a look forward, here are a few events that are coming up this week that should prove to be excellent:
On Tuesday night, our friends at Alley Boost host Startup Investor Night with a powerhouse line up of investors including Brendan Syron, Weston Reynolds, and Jeff Pulver – Startup Investor Night at Mercy College.
Also on Tuesday, StartupMound hosts their pitch night featuring with Comcast Ventures and 645 Ventures – Startupmound Pitch Series 4 Ft. Comcast Ventures & 645 Ventures in Harlem.
Tuesday evening, our friends at StrategyHack host their monthly discussion series on timely marketing topics, bringing together a top notch brand marketer and an entrepreneur – StrategyChat: Outlook of Tech in Marketing 2015 (MRY, Dash) at MRY.
For a full listing of upcoming events for the NYC startup and tech community, please visit the AlleyWatch NYC Tech and Startup Event Calendar.
