Austin Ventures (”AV”), the most active and established early-stage venture capital firm in Texas, today announced that Andrew Busey, former VP/GM at Zynga (ZNGA), has joined the firm as venture partner. Andrew brings extensive leadership and operational experience from his years of working with high-growth companies as an entrepreneur, leader, investor, and advisor. “In his new role, Andrew will help the venture team identify and attract very early-stage companies,” said John Thornton, General Partner, Austin [...]

Spredfast, a leading social media management system provider, today announced it has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by InterWest Partners. Also participating in the round is Austin Ventures, the lead investor of the company’s $3.6 million Series A round.  Spredfast plans to use the funding to expand its industry-leading platform that helps companies better manage engagement and conversion across all major social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs and Foursquare. “The [...]

NewComLink, a technology pioneer in retail credit solutions, today announced that it has received $10 million in a Series B round of financing from Austin Ventures and StarVest Partners. The round was led by StarVest and will be used to support aggressive growth as retailers and lenders continue to embrace the NewComLink platform as a high-value alternative to legacy payment solutions. “NewComLink is transforming the retail credit industry with a technology platform that brings new [...]

The Austin chapter of the Rice Alliance is holding an event with 10 entrepreneurs who will be pitching their early-stage business to a panel of VC and Angel judges. The panel includes the likes of local VC partner Mike Dodd (Austin Ventures) and Tim League (Founder of the Drafthouse). The night will also include a panel discussion about “How to Make the Most of Austin’s Entrepreneur Scene for Your Start Up.” When: Tuesday, June 28  [...]

mobileTech Tuesday, by Steve Guengerich As I was on my way to pick up my Monday morning coffee at 6am, I had an audio double-take when I heard this exchange on the morning news report between the KUT anchor and a reporter from the Austin Business Journal about chipmaker Altera Corp’s announced intentions to move some R&D operations to Austin. KUT anchor: “Why did they choose Austin for this?” ABJ reporter: “Oh, because there is [...]

Boundless Network announced today it has raised an additional $4 million in financing. The funds will enable the branded merchandise distributor to support its rapid growth and expand its technology platform. The financing is from existing investment partners Austin Ventures and Silverton Partners. Boundless Network has now raised a total of $17 million in funding to date. “We are excited about the additional investment from Austin Ventures and Silverton Partners,” said Jason Black, Boundless Network [...]

A group of seasoned Austin technology entrepreneurs and executives are announcing the formation of their new company, Mass Relevance, to help consumer brand use real-time social content to drive engagement on television, the web, and in the mobile world. The team has already secured nearly $2 Million in Series A financing from Mike Maples new firm FLOODGATE, and Austin Ventures.

The DEMO folks are coming back to town and are taking 10 meetings with promising young startups that are considering launching at DEMO Spring 2011. The Austin stop of the DEMO tour is going to be on November 19th, and is being hosted by Austin Ventures. The DEMO conference has been the launchpad for several outstanding technology companies including Tivo, Palm, Salesforce.com and local Austin companies such as SocialSmack, InfoChimps, Gelato, and Piryx. Apply Here. [...]

Having been founded in 1999, Zilliant is hard to categorize as a startup anymore. The company creates the leading software in an enterprise niche called pricing optimization and margin management. Most people don’t really think of pricing as an elastic thing. An item’s price is the price. But even Walmart (the epitome of brick and mortar) changes prices on some items daily, based upon sales and competitive intelligence. So why would you not think that [...]

Click Forensics, a leading provider of online advertising and audience verification solutions, today announced that it recently closed a $6 million Series C funding round led by Austin Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and Shasta Ventures. The funding will help support Click Forensics as it expands development and marketing of new offerings designed to help brand advertisers and agencies verify online audiences and optimize investments for display advertising campaigns.