100Plus Raises $1.25M From Greylock and Band Of Angels To Make You Live Longer

Less than a month after securing $500K from Founders Fund, health prediction service100Plus has brought its funding up to $1.25 million. The new $750K in funding comes from Reid Hoffman and John Lilly via Greylock Partners’ Discovery Fund, Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, and Ian Sobieski and Nicola Corzine via Band Of Angels’ Acorn Fund. The plan for the money? Developing the front and back end of the forthcoming 100Plus product so it can increase your lifespan. Co-founder Ryan Howard tells me the team is almost ready to launch its “crystal ball for your future, with insight into the 2 different versions of you — one that eats cheesecake for breakfast, and one that drinks a powershake.” Given the rate it’s taking funding and the quality of its investors, some see riches in 100Plus’ future.

Howard is also the founder and CEO of free electronic medical records provider Practice Fusion. He says that startup’s goal is to help sick patients get better, while 100Plus is designed to prevent people from getting sick in the first place. Users log their diet, exercise, and other decisions, which 100Plus compares against its datasets from Practice Fusion, Health.gov, and the CDC. It then shows you the path your life will take given those decisions. That means showing you how you’ll get diabetes at 40 and die at 55 if you’re making poor choices, and how you could be bicycling with your grandkids if you improve.

With the funding, 100Plus has hired design firm Cooper to create an elegant, beautiful user experience that takes advantages of all of the capabilities of iOS. It’s also hiring engineers, predicting its own growth and need for scalability.

Next 100Plus plans to build out gamification elements, allowing you to compare scores privately or anonymously with friends, family, coworkers, or global averages. Howard tells me him and co-founder Chris Hogg want to “leverage the human ego to get the end user to live longer. Older people are going to love it because it lets them maximize their lifespan. College kids are going to love it because they’re competitive.”

100Plus also has enterprise prospects. Companies are interested in getting employees tracking their health and rewarding them with gym memberships and other healthy perks if they keep their score ups — and keep the company’s health insurance rates down. With multiple prospective revenue streams and booming interest in personal wellness, 100Plus looks like it has a healthy life ahead of it.

Burstly Raises $5.5M For In-App Ad Management; Launches Mobile Offer Mediation For iOS & Android

App developers don’t exactly have a plethora of monetization options, which is why, alongside in-app purchases, they’re becoming increasingly reliant on mobile advertising. For this reason, they want to get the most out of their ads, and, really, they want to sell directly to customers. Unfortunately, for most small teams, this just isn’t in the cards. Which is where startups like Burstlyenter the picture.

While there are plenty of mobile ad mediation solutions to choose from, Burstly CEO Evan Rifkin thinks that the current batch isn’t doing enough to empower developers to take complete control over monetization opportunities. For example, the startup offers a storefront for developers that enables them to establish their own branded portal where advertisers can directly purchase placements in their apps.

As to where the space is going, Rifkin says that developers want to control and manage all of their revenue channels from one dashboard so that they can have an apples to apples comparison of what brings in the most money, whether that’s ad networks, offer providers, cross-promotion, or direct sales. To further this goal, the startup is today launching Burstly Rewards, a product that mediates mobile offers both on iOS and Android.

Simply put, Rewards enables developers to mediate multiple providers within one wall, mixing in-house and direct campaigns and the ability to match the UI to their app’s look and feel, as well as support multiple offer types, whether they be videos, offers, downloads (Android only), and shares.

Burstly’s product aims to put the controls in the hands of developers so that they make immediate changes without having to make an SDK update — if they need to shut off a certain partner who isn’t in compliance, for example, they can do so quickly, or add new partners without updating their SDK.

The product has two essential components: The Rewards Wall, which allows app developers to mix and match third-party networks, in-house, and directly-sold offers in one place, along with selecting which providers (and the number of offers) to be displayed. Second is the Rewards Page, which allows them to run reward-driven campaigns through a customizable, branded page that fills the app’s entire screen. Users can access the Rewards page through custom buttons and/or banners throughout the apps.

The idea behind these new products, and Burstly’s existing feature set is to try to give developers every conceivable monetization opportunity for their apps. As the ad mediation space evolves, Rifkin says that, rather than view others in the space as competitors, the startup is working to plug other players into their solution to do just that, for example, Smaato, Mobclix, Nexage, and MoPub are all on the list. With more coming soon.

To support the launch of its new products, and further development to its Storefront offering, Burstly is today announcing that it has raised $5.5 million in series B financing from GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, and SoftBank. These existing investors were the main contributors to the company’s $1.8 million series A raise back in March of last year. The company’s total investment now stands at just north of $7.3 million. is announcing $5.5 M in funding led by existing investors GRP Partners, Rincon Venture Partners and SoftBank.

Burstly Rewards is in beta starting today and developers can request to join. Rifkin says that the company will have several “well-known” titles launching with the Rewards product before the holidays.

France Télécom, Publicis launch pan-European VC fund. Target: €300 million

Confirming rumors earlier reported byBloomberg, mobile carrier France Télécom-Orange and advertising juggernaut Publicis Groupe have teamed up to launch a venture capital fund.

The companies have committed to jointly put in 150 million euros (presumably split 50/50), and are seeking outside investors to double the size of the fund, which will focus on backing budding entrepreneurs building digital companies in France and the rest of Europe.

Bloomberg pegged the size of the fund at ‘more than 100 million euros’.

If enough investors line up to back the new fund, it will reach its actual target size of 300 million euros (roughly $411.5 million).

The fund will be flexible enough to provide seed capital (up to 1 million euros) but also participate in later-stage financing rounds (up to 15 million euros per project). According to a press statement, the fund may opt to also invest in startups outside of Europe in collaboration with Asian or American funds at a later time. A great initiative if you ask me.

The new fund will be operated by a management company, with investment decisions made by a committee independent of both France Télécom-Orange and Publicis Groupe.

From the press release:

The fund’s main targets for investment will be companies focusing on digital technology, content and services. Likely sectors include online marketing, e-commerce, mobile content and services, online gaming and social networks, as well as their associated technologies and infrastructures such as middleware, cloud computing, security, and online payments.

The plans for the new VC fund remain subject to the approval of relevant authorities.

Online retailer with a twist BagThat soft-launches with £2m in funding

BagThat, a new online store that aims to leverage social networks to benefit consumers and suppliers alike through the power and economics of collective buying, this morning announced funding of £2 million from a private EIS fund.

BagThat debuts today on a limited basis and will officially launch in January 2012. Already, the fledgling company has signed up Halfords, Thomas Cook, Neilsons and Champneys; the first of apparently many high street brands to join the venture.

BagThat is not your typical online retailer though, as the ecommerce company will offer a range of branded products for sale, but will ask consumers what they are willing to pay rather than setting a firm price.

By aggregating individual requests from – it hopes – thousands of consumers, BagThat will work with retailers to offer the ‘best possible price’ to the maximum number of people.

Think of it as a hybrid that combines the best of both auction-based and group buying sites.

See this inexplicably non-embeddable video to learn more about BagThat.

Admirably, BagThat is committed to giving 5 percent of its net proceeds to charity. Charities will include Malaria No More, The ForceSelect Foundation, and The Phoenix Foundation.

Aksel Raises $500K From 500 Startups & More To Bring European Men’s Fashion To The U.S.

Aksel Group, the company behind AkselParis.com, a direct-to-consumer online men’s fashion store, announced this week that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding. The round was led by Inspiration Ventures, with participation from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, Fabrice Grinda, the founder of OLX, IG Expansion’s Jose Marin, Paul Bragiel of I/O Ventures, and French entrepreneur Nicolas Bernadi.

So what is it about this men’s fashion company that has investors revved up about its prospects? Well, it’s a bit like J. Hilburn, in that it seeks to cut out the middle man (and the mark-up) by selling direct to consumer. Oh, and it’s got a European twist.

The San Francisco-based Aksel sells luxury fashion, like shirts, socks, footwear (along with accessories like iPad covers), at affordable prices, all of which are made in Europe. In the next few weeks, Aksel will be rolling out outerwear and scarves, and it will be using its new round of funding to expand its line, with an emphasis on distributing European brands that don’t have a presence in the U.S. The company plans to offer 20 brands by the end of the year.

Selling luxury clothes direct-to-consumer online allows the company offer product at 30 to 50 percent discounts, says Aksel Founder and CEO Yazid Aksas. By cutting out the stores’ commissions, in the same way Dell does, for example, the company can offer merchandise that outpaces those found at department stores, but is on par in terms of affordability.

Another bonus? The shipping (within the U.S.) is free. So far, the CEO says, the brand has built a loyal following among young professionals because of a unique loyalty approach: Aksel names its shirts after its most loyal customers, who in turn become brand advocates.

Aksel is hoping that by offering a European-influenced brand, tailored for the U.S. market it can offer clothes that have the look of fashion but also address the less formal, tie-less culture that has become popular in the U.S. The company wants to be a one-stop shop for men’s fashion, distributing brands that have gained traction in Europe but have little recognition in the U.S.

There are many mid-size brands in Europe, the CEO says, that have zero presence in the U.S. because of the pain they have to go through to reach American consumers. So, with Aksel, he wants to give those brands an easy way to distribute their merchandise in the U.S. But Aksel won’t be the kind of online clothing outlet that consists of $5,000 coats, the Frenchman says, the focus will be on clothes that not only look good, but are casual, and affordable.

Startup Weekend EDU Receives $250,000 Grant From The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $250,000 to the Startup Weekend EDU series of events, the dedicated education-focused vertical within the non-profit.

The Startup Weekend organization, which is supported by the Kauffman Foundation and the social learning startup Grockit, offers intense 54-hour events where entrepreneurs come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups.

The EDU vertical within Startup Weekend was officially launched in September, and kicked off its launch with events in Seattle, San Francisco and Washington D.C. over the past month. This month, Startup Weekend will host its next EDU event in London from November 25th-27th. The organization will soon announce more events that will be taking place worldwide over the next 12 months.

“Given its dedication to education reform and extensive networks in the space, the Gates Foundation is the ideal partner for us to scale the Startup Weekend EDU initiative,” said Farb Nivi, founder of Grockit about the grant from the Gates Foundation.

To register for the London Startup Weekend EDU event, head over to edu.startupweekend.org.

iVerse Media Receives $4 Million Investment to Grow Its Comics+ App

Cross-publisher digital comics distributor iVerse Media today announced a $4 million private equity investment from PS&J Group. The money will go towards expanding marketing and product development for its iOS comics reader appComics+. While publishers such as Archie Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and Marvel maintain standalone reader apps, Comics+ aggregates content from dozens of publishers to offer a one-stop comics purchasing and reading experience.

PS&J’s investment indicates its belief that the newsstand is quickly giving way to the App Store in terms of where readers get their comics. Apps have high monetization potential, as users can instantly buy the next installment of their favorite series. This facilitates purchasing binges where readers might spend more than $20 in a single reading session, rather than leaving a bookstore with just a few $1.99 issues or a single graphic novel.

Pierre LeRoy, PS&J Group chairman says that “Through digital comic sales, software licensing, and strategic partnerships, iVerse has been financially solvent for some time now.” Currently, iVerse offers its Comics+ app which includes video capabilities, and Comics+Kids which exclusively provides family friendly comics. Both iOS apps are free but charge users the standard newsstand price of $1.99 per issue through in-app purchases.

Comics+ already includes titles from many of the most popular publishers, but is missing some heavyweights such as DC Comics which can be found in competitor comiXology’s app. The funding could help it secure distribution deals to round out its content offering.

Marketing will also be an important use of the funding as comiXology’s Comics app currently has a higher search ranking in the App Store for the query ‘Comics’. If iVerse can get more downloads and increase its average rating, it could improve its discoverability. Product development that would allow Comics+ to host innovative new multimedia reading experiences could also aid its quest to become the #1 digital comics reader. iVerse already powers standalone reader apps for Archie, Star Trek, and other titles, and product development could attract more publishers to build on the company’s technology.

With brick and mortar comic book stores going out of business or diversifying into more lifestyle products, finding comics in paper form is getting more difficult. Still, the medium is very much alive with Marvel releasing big-budget films featuring super heroes and television shows like The Walking Dead being adapted from comics. The PS&J Group investment will give iVerse’s Comics+ apps a better chance of picking up first time readers and those switching to digital.