Funding Daily: Taffy

Recently, I took a trip to Pier 39 in San Francisco just to see what all the tourism-love was about. What I found was taffy.

There were barrels and barrels of beautiful taffy — all different flavors.

Which I’ve got to imagine is kind of like Silicon Valley startups today. Venture capitalists have barrels and barrels of startups to pick and choose from, searching out the best kinds, and plopping them into their portfolios. And the flavors vary: consumer tech, business tech, health tech, online shopping, all of which can be found in today’s funding roundup.

Yep, I just compared your funding with my candy. It’s hump day, folks.

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Box strikes back at Dropbox with $100M round and a $2B valuation

Cloud storage provider Box is raising a $100 million round, according to a public document filed last month. On Oct 14., Box authorized the sale of 5.55 million shares of preferred stock at $18 a share — or a total of $100 million  – which would value the company at just shy of $2 billion, according to VC Experts. The filing was made last month, but apparently it had gone unnoticed until today, when VC Experts brought it to our attention. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Back to the future: Cloud platform Apprenda snags $16M

Cloud platform Apprenda raised $16 million today to help companies update their existing tech that they spent lots of money on back in the day. Apprenda, a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering, helps enterprises build and deploy applications in their own data centers or the cloud. It’s focused on Microsoft’s .NET framework and added support for Java earlier this year. With today’s $16 million — led by Safeguard Scientifics with participation from Ignition Partners and New Enterprise Associates — the company has raised $32 million in total investment. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Apartment List is fixing the painful, time-sucking process of rental search

Apartment List claims to be the fastest-growing apartment search engine in the U.S. and has raised $15 million in funding to help people find homes. The engine aggregates millions of listings from around the country and puts them together in a map-based interface, with filters for price, neighborhood, number of bedrooms, amenities, and even pet-friendliness. Matrix Partners led this first round of funding, which will support Apartment List’s continued geographical expansion and product development. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Littlebits lands $11M to make its snappable electronics a platform for future hardware makers

LittleBits isn’t going to stop until every one of you can make your own alarm clock. The New York-based hardware startup creates snapable electronics modules, which it uses to take the intimidation out of making circuits and device prototypes. As one writer put it, this is Lego for the iPad generation. Today it got $11 million in funding. Littlebits’s latest funding round was led by True Ventures and Foundry Group and was joined new investors Two Sigma Ventures and Vegas Tech Fund. Khosla Ventures, Mena Ventures, Neoteny Labs, O’Reilly AlphaTech, and Lerer Ventures also participated in the round. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Flayr gets $6.1M for specialized online shopping in France

Flayr wants to change the way you online shop — starting with France. It got $6.1 million in its first round of funding today to do so. The company has created a part personalized shopping, part social network website where you can “discover” new fashions and buy them right on the site. Retailers and designers can set up their own areas on the website as well to interact with potential customers. The investment comes from Candel and Partners, Merifin Capital, and C3P Capital. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

ALOHA drinks up $4M so you drink your vitamins and minerals

ALOHA raised $4 million to keep people healthier with its array of health and wellness products. The e-commerce company sells items such as a daily 5-pill pack and green whole-food powder that make sure people get the nutrients they need. First Round Capital, Highland Capital Partners, FF Angel, Khosla Ventures, and Forerunner Ventures participated in this round.

Shake gets $3M to bring legal docs to your smartphone

Shake, a mobile-first startup for legal documents, has raised a $3 million first round of institutional funding. Documents available on Shake include template forms, letters, and contracts for a variety of scenarios such as independent contracting, hiring a new employee, nondisclosure agreements, rentals, purchase and sale agreements, and personal loans. It also has a DIY option. SoftBank Capital led the round, which also saw participation from existing investor RRE Ventures, as well as new investors BoxGroup, ENIAC Ventures, Mesa+, WGI Group, and Patrick Keane in the round. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Colingo raises money to teach English in an online yet intimate setting

Colingo raised $2.4 million in funding for is live, online English school where students can learn in interactive video classes, and receive personalized skill training and private tutoring. It targets global professionals who want to improve their English fluency. Atlas Venture, 500 Startups, Morado Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Havoc Capital, and Social Leverage participated in this round.

Hover secures $1.4M for its 3D mapping tech

Mapping startup Hover has secured $1.4 million in debt funding, according to an SEC document filed today. Hover creates advanced 3-D imagery from nearly any kind of images, including smartphone photos, drone airplane photography, satellite images, recorded video, and more. According to the filing, the startup is still seeking another $1.8 million (for a total of $3.2 million). Check out the SEC filing for more info, as well as VentureBeat’s previous coverage of Hover.