I just bought a dog sweater from a stranger who lives across the country from me. And I totally blame Yardsellr, a year-old startup backed by a team of eBay veterans who may well be inventing the future of social commerce.

Yardsellr CEO and founder Danny Leffel just announced his company has raised $5 million from Accel Partners, the venture-capital firm best known for investing in Facebook, and Harrison Metal Capital, the investing vehicle of former eBay executive Michael Dearing, who’s quietly backed AdMob, Aardvark, CafePress and others. Besides Leffel, ex-eBayers on the team include Jed Clevenger, who ran paid search at eBay, and Rachel Makool, former head of eBay’s community team.

While Yardsellr has a website — Yardsellr.com — the shopping experience isn’t built around it. Take my dog sweater, for example: I found it on the Yardsellr Doggie Block, a Facebook page built for canine obsessives like myself. I saw the sweater but had my doubts: Was I one of those dog owners who dresses up their best friends in hideous outfits?

So I posted the sweater to my Facebook wall and asked my friends what they thought. I instantly got two thumbs up (orange is Ramona the Love Terrier’s signature color, after all), clicked to buy it with PayPal, and sent the sweater seller a Facebook message confirming the size.

Some call Yardsellr the “eBay of Facebook,” but I think that’s selling it short. Buying on eBay or Craigslist would have been a far more troublesome experience, from sharing the item with friends to deciding whether I could trust the seller. (In an additional twist, I paid Yardsellr’s fee, rather than the seller, so Yardsellr is making it easy for sellers used to Craigslist’s fee-free for-sale listings to make the switch.)

Yardsellr’s true potential may be redeeming the original idea behind eBay’s now sadly troubled marketplace, which was built around a reputation system that let strangers buy and sell to each other. eBay jealously guarded its reputation system, which meant that it never grew outside ebay.com. The company had a second chance with PayPal, which arguably knew a lot more about buyers and sellers through their bank accounts, credit cards, and purchasing habits on and off eBay — but it never developed PayPal as a reputation system.

Through its links to social networks, Yardsellr could be the fulfillment of the promise of social commerce. What will fuel buying and selling isn’t just cleverly targeted recommendations; it’s a sense of community and trust that transcends meaningless “A+++ WOULD BUY AGAIN” ratings. Because Yardsellr is organizing around communities of interest rather than a single destination site, it should be able to create groups where trust can thrive, backed by the validated reputation of Facebook and Twitter profiles.

And where trust exists, commerce usually follows.

Yardsellr, based in Palo Alto, has to date operated on seed funding from Dearing’s Harrison Metal Capital. The company currently has seven employees.

Tags: e commerce, online classifieds, online reputation, reputation systems, social commerce

Companies: craigslist, eBay, Harrison Metal Capital, Yardsellr

People: Danny Leffel, Jed Clevenger, Michael Dearing, Rachel Makool

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Looks like it isn’t just employees who are cashing out on their Facebook shares. TechCrunch reported earlier today that Accel Partners sold “very significant chunks” of its staks in the company (while also holding on to the vast majority of its shares), and I’ve confirmed with the news with a source.

My source said that Accel sold its shares at a $34 billion valuation, and that those shares added up to less than 20 percent of Accel’s total stake. Contrary to TechCrunch’s report, my source told me that Accel remains the largest venture shareholder in Facebook.

I couldn’t get any information on the who was doing the buying. TechCrunch doesn’t sound too sure about the details, but says it heard that Technology Crossover Ventures bought $200 million worth of shares, while Andreessen Horowitz bought $80 million.

Whatever the details, with this sale, Accel has clearly had a huge return on its $12.7 million investment in Facebook’s first round. And that will be dwarfed by how much the firm will earn if it keeps the rest of its shares until Facebook’s initial public offering.

Both Accel and Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment.

Tags: cashing out, liquidity

Companies: Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Facebook, Technology Crossover Ventures

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Cloudera, a maker of data-management software for large companies, announced today that it has raised $25 million in its third round of funding to help build its Hadoop-based software architecture.

Hadoop is an open-source data-management software framework. But Cloudera provides a version that is specifically for enterprise users, coupled with IT support and management. The software provides analytics and storage options for large-scale networks that have thousands of nodes and process petabytes (that’s 1,000 terabytes) at any given second.

The Cloudera software actually consists of 11 different open-source Hadoop projects lashed together into a single enterprise software service. It’s similar to how some companies operate with Linux — the software is open source. Its main software offering for the enterprise, Cloudera Enterprise, also provides users with resource management and real-time monitoring of applications.

The funding is pegged for further research and development and marketing of the Hadoop software architecture for enterprise usage.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company was founded in 2008 and has so far raised $36 million. It has around 40 employees, and its clients include RapLeaf and Bank of America. Its most recent round of funding was led by Meritech Capital Partners, though existing investors Accel Partners and Greylock Partners also participated in the round. Yahoo, Google and Facebook all also use Hadoop to power some of their services.

[Photo: mfrascella]

Tags: data management, Hadoop, resource management

Companies: Accel Partners, Adobe, cloudera, Facebook, Google, Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital Partners

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

RGB Networks, a provider of video processing technology, has raised $20 million in a fifth round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC.

Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company develops chips that provide cable and telco operators with solutions for delivery of video to multiple devices. RGB works with clients in more than 20 countries.

Founded in 2003, the company last raised $20 million in 2008 from Institutional Venture Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital, Focus Ventures, Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. RGB has raised more than $75 million in funding to date.

Companies: Accel Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital, Focus Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Rgb Networks

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Looking to make their display ads more appealing to advertisers and agencies, Yahoo today announced on its blog that it has plans to buy Dapper, a mashup technology to bring the advantages of search-based advertising into the world of display ads.

Dapper’s technology lets users easily set up their display ad preferences online, such as total amount to spend on a campaign, and put the most updated and accurate website information into display ads. For example, an e-commerce website selling electronics would be able to showcase its most recent sales items in its display ads in real-time.

The company launched back in 2008 when companies like Yahoo ironically were saying their display ads were declining and rumors had it that companies like Yahoo and Google were working on their own similar technology.

Competitor LucidMedia, a similar platform for optimizing display ads, was used by Yahoo Right Media in 2008 to ensure that advertisers’ creative display advertisements appear alongside relevant content on publishers’ sites.

When the company launched, results were promising but not well documented due to the early stages. Today, Dapper appears to showcase some impressive statistics, including results of 2 1/2 and 8 times higher engagement from consumers.

Dapper’s vice product of product marketing, Amit Kumar previously led Yahoo’s SearchMonkey platform before joining the startup in September and could have been a strong connection in the acquisition.

The San Francisco-based company previously raised $3 million from Accel Partners, Mitch Kapor and others.

Tags: display ads, mashup ads

Companies: Dapper, Yahoo

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

BranchOut, a Facebook app for career networking, has raised $6 million in a first round of equity from Accel Partners, according to a filing with the SEC.

The app, which launched in July, lets users find out where friends are working or have worked in the past. If friends have the app, users can also see where friends of friends work. Like LinkedIn, BranchOut connects people for professional purposes, but BranchOut leverages a user’s already existing Facebook friend base. Users can also list job postings on BranchOut for free.

Based in San Francisco, the startup was founded in 2008 and was previously self-funded.

Companies: Accel Partners, BranchOut, linkedin

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

Tags: Amazon EC2, cloud computing, Elastic Compute Cloud, funding, Venture Capital

Companies: Accel Partners, Amazon.com, Eucalyptus, Makara, Nimbula, Sequoia Capital

People: Chris Pinkham, Ping Li, Willem van Bijon

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

Atlassian, a project-management company headquartered in Sydney, just announced raising a huge, $60 million first round of funding from Accel Partners. This is supposedly the biggest investment Accel has ever made in a software company.

As you’d probably guess given the size of the funding, Atlassian isn’t your typical startup raising a first round. It was founded in 2002 by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar (pictured), was self-funded until now, and says it has been profitable from the start. It now has more than 225 employees and 20,000 customers. Products include an issue tracker for software developers called JIRA and a business wiki called Confluence.

Atlassian said it’s raising the money now to help fund expansion in Europe and Asia, to expand its ability to acquire other companies, and to give liquidity to its employees — i.e., to help them cash-out some of their company shares, so they don’t have to wait until an acquisition or initial public offering.

Accel’s Rich Wong is joining Atlassian’s board of directors. In the press release, Wong said, “We’ve been fans of Atlassian for years, and the vast majority of our portfolio companies innovate using Atlassian products.”

[image: Adam Craven]

Companies: Accel Partners, Atlassian

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

Ingenuity Systems, a startup that makes software for life science researchers, has closed a $15.4 million round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Redwood City, Calif., the company creates tools for analyzing experimental data and researching scientific literature. Investors include Accel Partners, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners and Three Arch Partners. Ingenuity Systems previously raised $5 million in 2003.

Companies: Accel Partners, Ingenuity Systems, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Three Arch Partners

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

Truste, a company that provides an Internet privacy and safety seal to business websites, today announced it secured a second funding round of $12 million. The funding will be used expand through sales and marketing while focusing on small businesses.

Truste provides a business with a way to certify that it cares and is thinking about its consumers privacy issues. Customers who are interested in using the seal have to adhere to what the company says are industry privacy standards. For about $240 a year, or $19.95 a month, you’ll get 100 seal views per day for one website as well as a privacy policy and help resolving and consumer complaints.

Of course, a Truste seal is no guarantee against privacy complaints – Facebook, whose privacy policies have sparked plenty of criticism if little drop-off in traffic, is a Truste customer. When asked about Facebook, Truste CEO Chris Babel told VentureBeat:

“We see time and again that consumers care about privacy and react strongly when their privacy expectations are not met – and Facebook is only the most recent example. We’re pleased to see that Facebook responded to users’ and Truste’s requirements and is now offering fundamentally better privacy controls for consumers. Online, where innovation is the foundation of success, delivering privacy isn’t a one-time act, but a process and a commitment. We expect to work closely with Facebook and help them reap the rewards by delivering privacy through increased transparency, accountability and choice.” 

The San Francisco-based company, founded in 1997, claims its seal is hosted by some of the top websites, including Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, AOL, Adobe, AT&T, Comcast, Disney, Weather.com, Apple, LinkedIn, Web MD, and Yelp

The round of funding was lead by new investor Jafco Ventures. Previous investors DAG Ventures, Accel Partners and Baseline Ventures all participated in the round as well.

Tags: online privacy, website seals

Companies: Facebook, Truste

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More