Funding Daily: Booze news

Many different kinds of startups get funding every day. Today we saw a text book app, a wearable-tech company, and a password manager get millions of dollars.

And then there was the booze. Yes, investors were also interested in two different alcohol-oriented startups today. Together, Liquor.com and a wine company brought in a whopping $13.4 million. Not bad. Those VCs must be looking forward to their August vacations.

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Former YouTube head launches $35M fund for startups that are building the ‘bottom up economy’

Former YouTube chief Hunter Walk and former Twitter exec Satya Patel announced today that they are launching a new $35 million venture fund. The fund itself is called Homebrew, which is a reference to the Homebrew Computer Club from the ’70s that helped spawn a wave of personal computer companies like Apple. And while Homebrew isn’t looking for on hardware or craft beer tech startups like the name suggests, its investment focus is still interesting. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Withings gets in on the wearable computing craze, raises $30M

Withings, a maker of digital health tracking devices, has nabbed another $30 million as it expands into wearable tech. The startup will use the funding to take its products to international markets. Withings is best known for its Wi-Fi body scales, which debuted in 2009. A year later, the company raised $3.85 million and released more devices, including a smart baby monitor and blood pressure tracking device. Investment firm Bpifrance led the round, fronting $15 million, with participation from Idinvest Partners, 360 Capital Partners, and Ventech. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Revolution Growth Fund invests $23.5M in Optoro to find unwanted goods a home

Optoro has raised $23.5 million to smooth the distribution of merchandise sold online. The round was led by Revolution Growth Fund, which was founded by former AOL execs Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, and Donn Davis. Optoro sells software-as-a-service that helps online retailers manage and sell their returned, damaged, and excess inventory. This is Revolution’s Growth fifth investment. The firm was founded in 2011 and closed a $450 million fund to invest in “speed-ups.” Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Inkling scores $16M, partners with Pearson and Elsevier for its digital book platform

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With another hefty round of funding, Inkling’s plans to dominate the e-book world are one step closer to reality. Back in February, Inkling announced Inkling Habitat, an all-encompassing publishing environment for digital books. The company’s ambition seems to have clicked with investors — Inkling announced today that it has raised a $16 million third round from Sequoia Capital’s Growth Fund. Other investors include Felicis Ventures, Tenaya Capital, and Kapor Capital. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Developer company Xamarin raises $16M, claims 350K dev users

Xamarin, a startup that’s all about enabling mobile developers within the enterprise, has raised a second round of institutional funding. The $16 million round was led by Lead Edge Capital, with participation from previous investors Charles River Ventures, Ignition Partners, and Floodgate. The company also announced today that it has 20,000 paying developers and a total of more than 350,000 devs in its community. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

On-Ramp Wireless raises $15M more to connect utilities and the Internet of Things

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On-Ramp Wireless, a company that has developed unique wireless technology for machine-to-machine communication across wide areas, announced today that it has nabbed an additional $15 million in funding. On-Ramp’s wireless tech is an alternative to cellular networks, which are shared with general consumers and don’t offer much control for large companies. The additional investment, led by the North American energy company Enbridge, brings On-Ramp’s total third round of funding to $31 million. Read the full post on VentureBeat.

CloudVelocity takes $13M

CloudVelocity, previously known as Denali Systems, has just filed with the SEC closing a $13 million round of funding. The Santa Clara, Calif.,-based startup raised from Mayfield Fund, 3Leaf CEO B.V. Jagadeesh, and others. CloudVelocity makes hybrid cloud software supporting both physical and virtual multitier apps and services.

Vivino uncorks $10.3M to turn anyone into a wine snob

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Wine app Vivino is imbibing $10.3 million for its app that uses image recognition technology to identify wines. Vivino is a tool that helps anyone from novices to oenophiles create a personal library of wine selections and learn more about their preferences, based on the wines they are drinking. You take a picture of a wine label and that photo is matched against a Vivino’s database of 1.3 million wines. Balderton Capital led this investment, which brings Vivino’s total capital raised to $12.4 million. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Liquor.com chug-chug-chugs $3.1M

Sauced startup Liquor.com has taken a second round of institutional funding in the amount of $3.1 million. The funding was led by Suffolk Equity Partners with participation from Typha Partners and others. The site is pretty much what you’d expect: booze, recipes for boozy drinks, and booze news. Hah, that rhymed.

Stayful launches real-time bidding platform for boutique hotel rooms

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A cabal of online travel executives are coming together to build a new kind of hotel booking site. Stayful launched its service in private beta today that enables travelers to find and bid on rooms in boutique hotels. Stayful has raised a $2.4 million seed round from Canaan Partners and a number of angel investors. It has seven employees and is based in New York City. The service is currently available in New York and San Francisco, with more to come soon. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Proven raises follow-on of $1M

Job-hunting mobile app Proven has tacked on an additional million smackers to its funding round, bringing its total seed raise to a respectable $3.8 million. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Kapor Capital, Founder Collective, Greylock Partners, and other angels. Funds will be used for building out the app’s underlying tech and beefing up partnerships. “We are helping to get America back to work,” said CEO Pablo Fuentes in a statement on the news. “For the 99.9 percent, we have designed Proven to make finding and applying for jobs as easy as a few taps on your mobile phone. In five years, we can’t imagine most job applications not happening via mobile devices.”

YC-company Meldium says it will fix password management with $1M in seed money

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Password management is a big issue that a lot of startups are starting to get in on. Meldium raised $1 million in its seed round today to help your company monitor access. Meldium’s technology lets IT managers look at who has access to a system and grant privileges from a dashboard. These privileges can be removed just as easily as given out. The funding comes from Draper Associates and Founders Co-op.