Website Magazine is rolling out a number of new channels on our redesigned website, one of which is "Movers & Shakers." This channel, the one you're visiting now features the most interesting funding news, key acquisitions and corporate milestones worthy of note. Here's what happening today amongst you digital Movers and Shakers.
Social media platform and referral engine Tout'd, which allows communities to collect and share recommendations, announced the closing of its initial $1.4 million seed stage funding round. "We believe that Tout'd is fulfilling a niche in the social media recommendation space that simply wasn't available before," said Rob Morelli, co-founder of Tout'd. "Now, instead of getting recommendations from strangers or paid reviewers, Tout'd enables individual users to leverage opinions from a network of trusted, personal friends." Tout'd was founded by Wall Street veterans Rob Morelli, Saro Cutri, and 2007 TechStars alumnus Arron Kallenberg.
Cloud provider and hybrid cloud sharing solution for businesses Egnyte announced it has closed a $16 million round of Series C financing led by Google Ventures with support from existing investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Polaris. "Hybrid cloud is going to become an important component for global enterprises to run their mission-critical applications," said Karim Faris, Partner at Google Ventures. "Egnyte's market momentum, technology strengths, and vision for the future were key in our decision to lead the round. Egnyte is developing a new approach to cloud computing and we are excited to be working with them."
Mobile rewards network Kiip has raised an $11 million Series B funding round led by Relay Venturs, with participation from existing Series A investors Hummer Winblad and True Ventures. Currently, the company is tracking more than 100 million "moments of happiness" (the user's achievement of performance and progress milestones in the games or apps) every month in the United States alone on more than 400 apps, giving out an average of five rewards every second. With an initial engagement rate of 18 to 22 percent, the platform's rate balloons to 50 percent for users who have previously redeemed a Kiip reward.
