Accel has more than $ 30 m in digital marketing platform for auto industry Dealer.com

Leena Rao is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school Medill School of journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007 she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney advocacy and community relations in New York. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where it was ... ? Read More

Accel Partners has made a major investment in Dealer.com, a company that provides marketing solutions SaaS for auto dealers. Accel partner Todd Maclean will join the Board of Directors of the company as part of the deal, which is North of $ 30 million.

Based in Burlington, VT, Dealer.com sells SaaS application that manages the Web presence, auto dealers from beginning to end. Features include management of SEO tools for online advertising, online video, social media, lead management, inventory and marketing performance analytics. The company works with independent dealers, franchises, advertising agency and much more.

The recent shift towards purchases of cars and the success of sites like eBay mobile dealer Seeing success. Revenues reached $ 85 million in 2010, 60% increase over 2009, and more than three times the level of 2008, and the company expects to pass the $ 100 million in revenue in the year 2011.

McLean said that this investment is consistent with the Accel growth fund financing rapidly growing companies and theme true entrepreneurs who have built a reliable company and a great culture.

In the number of clients include Subaru of New England, American Suzuki Motor Corporation, Jaguar, Audi, BMW, Fletcher Jones Automotive Group, which has the largest Mercedes Benz dealership in the United States, as well as Gurley Leep car group and Napleton automobile group.

Dealer.com previously rasied 5 million dollars for funding year 2010.

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Accel leads $ 10. Round 5 m Birchbox cosmetics Discovery platform

Leena Rao is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school of the Medill School of journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007 she helped lead efforts for advocacy and community relationships Congressman Carloyn Maloney in New York. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003 where it was ... ? Read More

Birchbox, which serves as a platform for retail detection makeup, raised $ 10.5 million in series a round of funding led by Accel Partners with first round capital, Harrison metal Forerunner enterprises, enterprises Lehrer, Sam Lessin, Counsellor, Gary Vaynerchuck, Dave Morin, Stanford University Endowment and Andy Dunn, participated in the round.

Like Foodzie, Blissmobox, BeachMint and Babbaco; Birchbox adopted the subscription box model of the month, where members receive curator makeup and beauty products. Each month users get at least four awards samples of cosmetics, sent to their homes of more than 80 high beauty retailer as Kiehl, Laura Mercier, Smashbox, NARS and goods.

Web site complements the monthly packages, providing appropriate advice and training materials on its Web site to the featured designs. If a user wants to buy a full-sized version, they can buy at Birchbox, which will bring them points for future discounts (inviting new members will also help increase the points). Idea to help consumers discover new brands and products at an affordable price, as well as stimulation of sales.

One of the unique aspects of the Birchbox is that it offers personalized set of products each month that are configured for the user profiles and settings. Each user fills out a survey of beauty and create a profile which is then used to fetch the priest for each individual client.

Birchbox, which was founded in the Harvard Business School grads Hayley Barna and Kate Beauchamp, launched almost a year ago and already has a subscriber base of 45 000 clients (all of whom paid up to $ 10 a month apiece or $ 110 per year). And subscribers up to 50 per cent of the month for the past eleven months.

Accel partner Theresia Gouw Ranzetta said, "the team has established partnerships with some of the leading cosmetic brands to give consumers experience sampling fun monthly beauty in the world. We believe Birchbox has many opportunities for further growth, and we look forward to assisting their success ".

Beauchamp tells us that the site strives to be a combination of niche and the most famous products. In the end, she explained that Birchbox was trying to make cosmetics sales process easier for women and help get production in the hands of the consumer brands.

Beauchamp said that the new funding will be used to further the development of products and hiring. And the company is considering expanding to other verticals.

While many retailers seem to have jumped on the bandwagon of the month box, cosmetics industry is especially suitable for sampling experience. And Birchbox was one of the pioneers in the field model of the month. Many women (including me) want to try beauty products (irrespective of the price), whether makeup, shampoo, milk or cream; Before investing in them. Birchbox not only performs but also helps women discover new products and adds the element of an editorial nature.

BirchBox is a monthly subscription service, which provides beauty product samples for users on a monthly basis. The site offers relevant editorial content and e-commerce site.

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peerTransfer raises $ 7.5 million from Accel, and Sparks, Maveron for simple payment solution for students

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peerTransfer, simple payment solution for foreign students, today announced that it closed a $ 7.5 million funding round. Investment led by Spark capital, Accel Partners, Maveron and Boston starting capital.

The new infusion of capital adds to $ 1.1 million in seed funding to launch raised back in October last year, bringing total investment to just north of $ 8.6 million. Startup plans to use his last round to increase recruitment and development of its infrastructure, as it continues to cooperate with colleges and universities across the country to simplify international education payments.

Founded in 2009, peerTransfer is designed for foreign students in an attempt to provide a simple and secure payment method for quickly and safely make learning (and other education-related) payments. Startup aims to save foreign students, money transfer, eliminating the high fees and offering discount rates. The value proposition for educational institutions, on the other hand, is peerTransfer in the solution captures the ID information for students at the time of payment to the school knew that full payment is received and contains the information needed to send immediately student accounts.

Launch currently cooperates with 30 institutions including the University of Auburn, Georgia State University, University of Miami, Reed College, Wellesley College, and Western Kentucky University in order to streamline processing, with students some of the world of the mind and the ability to save thousands of dollars during their education international payments.

The best part is that peerTransfer is free for educational institutions and requires not engineering or coding knowledge to implement the decision of the institutions. As foreign students in the United States will lose more than $ 1 billion a year from bad exchange rates and bank charges, according to the peerTransfer founder and CEO of Iker Marcaide run looks complete transactions to ensure a greater volume of purchases and take advantage of more favourable exchange rates.

Crawl involves the removal of intermediate fees in order to save money and at the same time, work to reduce administrative overhead costs by ensuring accurate delivery and placement of funds in the student accounts.

This is an innovative, if not a bit dicey business model: this company does not charge students or school any money for their services and share the savings instead of students through their ability to take advantage of a more favourable exchange rates.

Music to the ears of foreign students to be sure. More details about peerTransfer visit their homes here.

Or check out the video below:

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