Series B
Tenaya capital has led an $18 million Series B round in Bluebox Security, which operates in the mobile security sector. Additional investors included Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, and Andreas Bechtolsheim, who co-founded Sun Microsystems. The San Francisco-based company rides the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend that causes major headaches for enterprises trying to secure sensitive information. However, this also presents a massive opportunity for security ventures, as research company MarketsandMarkets forecasts the BYOD market will grow to $181.39 billion by 2017. A 2013 report from Insight, which delivers IT solutions, predicted that by this year, 9 out of 10 American companies will allow for corporate applications on BYOD devices.
Series D
CommonFloor.com, a Bangalore-based real estate platform which lists 5 million homes, has raised Rs. 64 crore ($10.4 million) in Series D funding from Accel India and Tiger Global. The company ranks first in unique visitors among India’s real estate division, according to comScore, and reported 100 percent growth in revenues quarter-over-quarter from last year. Previous venture backing from Accel India and Tiger Global came to $7.5 million last summer. According to India Brand Equity Foundation, a governmentally-built trust, the real estate segment should drive $180 billion annual revenues by 2020. A 2013 article reports CommonFloor, founded in 2007, is an Rs 10-crore business which translates to $1.6 million dollars.
Funding
Fon has raised $14 million in a round led by Qualcomm Ventures, with investors Index Ventures, Google, Coral, Atomico and Deutsche Telekom. The company’s “my WiFi is your WiFi” ethos allows Fon users to get connected to more than 12 million hotspots, a number it aspires to grow to 35 million by 2016. Qualcomm and Fon are teaming up to shape a new router for Fon, while Qualcomm will incorporate Fon as a feature through its chipsets. The Madrid-based company, founded in 2005, now heads into enterprise with “WiFi for business.”
London cloud-based scheduling service Resource Guru has received $870,000 in an investment led by Index Ventures. Total backing in the company, started in 2011, comes to $1.14 million. The startup counts ASOS and National Geographic as among its customers.
Accelerator
Over the weekend, DP World’s Turn8 accelerator’s first graduating class presented their startups ideas to investors. Entrepreneurs from the Dubai-based program sought between $350,000 and $950,000 to grow and expand their businesses.