Everyone’s talking about Twitch’s big exit today, about how Amazon swooped in and snatched the acquisition out from underneath Google’s nose. In fact, our sources told us the deal with Google was all but done. Now today the news comes out that Amazon is buying Twitch for $970 million in cash.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the deal pipeline, here are the startups collecting money to start (or continue) their journeys toward an exit.
DraftKings receives $41M
Fantasy sports service DraftKings has raised a new $41 million round of funding, the company announced today.
DraftKings enables people to participate in daily fantasy sports competitions where they can win real cash prizes that range in value from pocket change to $1 million. The service offers fantasy competitions that primarily focus on baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Fantasy sports (football in particular) has proven to be pretty big business, and it even attracted the attention of Microsoft via its efforts surrounding NFL content, as VentureBeat previously pointed out.
AI Weekly
The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.
Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.
Read more on VentureBeat: DraftKings grabs $41M for its cash-rewards fantasy football league
Wizeline organizes $6.7M
Product-management startup Wizeline secured a new $6.7 million round of funding, according to an SEC document filed late last week.
Wizeline helps software companies determine which features in a particular product are most important — and which they should invest in next. The purpose of Wizeline’s platform is to make sure product management teams aren’t wasting time and resources on features that no one cares about while prioritizing those that are important.
Read more on VentureBeat: Product-management platform Wizeline raises $6.7M
ActivityHero drums up $2.2M
San Francisco-based ActivityHero helps find and book after-school activities and summer camps for kids. On the site, parents can read program descriptions, locate a program on a map, or check out user reviews. They can register their kids in multiple programs with one common app and activity providers automate the paperwork and payments. Calling itself a “Yelp for kids’ activities,” ActivityHero grew out of a listing of summer camps that started last year called Sign Up For Camp.com.
According to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company is about $350,000 away from landing a $2.2 million funding round.
Read more on VentureBeat: ActivityHero raises $2.2M for summer camp shopping site
BugHerd locates $930K
Australian bug-tracking service BugHerd has picked up AUS $1 million (U.S. $930,000) in a series A round led by Australian-based Tank Stream Ventures and Starfish Ventures, together with U.S.-based 500 Startups. The company says it has 50,000 business users around the world and is adding 1,000 new customers monthly. It has a minimalist focus that the company says appeals to nondevelopers as well as programmers. “There are plenty of bug trackers and project management tools out there, but they tend to put a focus solely on the development team, forgetting that there are other people involved in the project. This is a dilemma we can solve,” said chief executive and cofounder Alan Downie in a press release.
Read more on the BugHerd blog.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More