Uptake (nee Kango) has announced a series B fund raising round of $10 million lead by Trinity Ventures (early investor in Starbucks) and including Shasta. UpTake blog post here. TechCrunch story here.You will recall that Uptake is doing review meta-search. Indexing all of the user and editorial content on hotels and destinations.
This makes total raised to date $13.95mm after the series A announced back in July of $3.95mm (led that time by Shasta) but I now hear was closed in December 2007. I have an email exchange going with the Uptake PR people so hopefully will have some additional comments from CEO Yen Lee very soon. Am particularly interested in marketing plans, people plans and the need for a second round so soon after the first.
2 comments:
Hey Tim, thanks for the shout out to BOOT readers. Our traffic is growing and our user engagement stats are turning out to be better than expected. The funding will help us expand our coverage (still US) into more attractions/things to do, alternative lodging types, beaches, and restaurants. I know the original $4 mm seems like a lot of money but we're cognizant of the fact that the money raising window may not always be open given the economic situation, and we feel that on this round we can reach cashflow breakeven, and also consider strategic options like acquiring other Websites that might be looking for an exit in these difficult times. Hope you connect with Yen or Darlene. Or you can contact me too. Best,
Elliott
Tim, my apologies. I responded to your qs via email on Tues. I just resent the email to you. Please ping me (ylee at uptake.com) if you don't receive it.
Cheers, Yen
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