TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

BeachMint Closes $35M Funding, To Announce Celebrity Partners

By TechTaffy Desk

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

BeachMint has raised $35 million in financing from Accel Partners, Goldman Sachs, New World Ventures, Millenium Technology Value Partners, and NALA. Existing investors participating in the round include NEA, Trinity Ventures and Scale Ventures.

This new funding round, which brings BeachMint’s total financing to over $75 million, will be used to further BeachMint’s global expansion, to bolster its existing brands, and to launch several new brands planned for 2012, says the company.

Launched in late 2010, BeachMint now has four member-only sites; JewelMint.com with actress and fashion icon Kate Bosworth and celebrity stylist Cher Coulter, StyleMint.com with designers Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, BeautyMint.comwith Jessica Simpson and celebrity aesthetician Nerida Joy, and ShoeMint.com with style icon Rachel Bilson and stylist Nicole Chavez, in collaboration with shoemaker Steve Madden. BeachMint plans to announce two more celebrity partners in the coming months.

Prior to this funding, BeachMint has raised previous financing rounds led by NEA, Trinity Ventures and Scale Ventures, with participation from Anthem Ventures and Lightbank.

BeachMint is a venture backed social commerce company for designer-curated direct to consumer sites, founded by serial tech entrepreneurs, Josh Berman (Co-Founder MySpace) and Diego Berdakin.

Just in

Series A

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.
Around the web

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 
Fundings

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.
Around the web

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 
IT

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.