Salesforce.com and the European venture firms Notion Capital, Octopus Investments and MMC Ventures unveiled an Innovation Challenge for European start-ups building enterprise cloud apps on the Salesforce platform. The winning startups will have the opportunity to pitch for about $6.5 million of venture funding.

Social media startups catering to the business market have had a mixed reception from IPO investors but more success finding M&A exits. And they have brought a load of venture capitalists along for the ride.

Flotype has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, Yuri Milner, Salesforce.com and Y Combinator, according to news reports posted on the company’s Web site. Below is a story from GeekWire. NEWS STORY Flotype raises cash from Ignition, Salesforce and others to help coders build applications faster Flotype, a cloud startup led [...]

Salesforce.com announced it has agreed to buy Toronto-based Rypple, a provider of human resources software-as-a-service. Rypple, which has raised $13 million in funding from Bridgescale Partners, Edgestone Capital Ventures and Extreme Venture Partners, including a $7 million Series B round last year. Individual investors of Rypple include Peter Thiel (an early Facebook investor) and Roger [...]

Loic Le Meur has always been a consumer tech guy. Seesmic, the company he founded, rose to recognition by helping users manage their various social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter. And Le Meur himself has been a high-profile fixture at various Web 2.0 and social media conferences, including LeWeb, which takes place next month. [...]

Content-sharing site Box.net has wrapped up its Series D expansion round, having raised $81 million. As peHUB.com previously reported, Salesforce.com and New Enterprise Associates have joined the round, along with Bessemer Venture Partners and previous investors Andreessen Horowitz and Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth. Box has now raised more $162 million in total capital. CEO and [...]

Checkmarx Ltd., a provider of static application security testing software, has added an undisclosed amount of financing from Salesforce.com and Ofer Hi-Tech. Terms of the investment were not released. The infusion will be used to bolster product development and sales and marketing efforts.

UBS Now Stands For U-B-Steppin’!

Keep it Classy, San Francisco: Ellison trashes Salesforce

… But Only After Benioff responds to his keynote diss by holding court across the street

Big Money in clouds

Wait, Sarah Palin ISN’T Running for President? That’s probably going to hurt Joe McGinniss’ book sales

Salesforce.com, the San Francisco-based enterprise cloud computing company, has acquired Assistly, a virtual customer-service help desk whose customers include Klout, Instagram, and Spotify, among others. Assistly’s investors include Bullpen Capital, Index Ventures, Salesforce.com, Social Leverage and True Ventures. Salesforce is paying $50 million in cash for the company, also based in San Francisco. Assistly had [...]

800App said it closed a Series B funding with new investor Salesforce.com joining existing investor Sierra Ventures in the round. The China-based CRM software as a services company did not release financial terms. PRESS RELEASE 800App Closes Series B Round of Funding to Drive China Expansion 800App, a leading provider of online CRM in China, [...]