Chris Witkowsky
Sightly, a video advertising technology company, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Mack Capital, with participation by investors including Tomorrow Ventures and 500 Startups.
Bob Diamond's firm, Atlas Merchant Capital, has hired David Schamis, a former managing director at J.C. Flowers & Co., to oversee the firm's private equity investing. Schamis joined J.C. Flowers in 2000, prior to which he worked at Salomon Brothers. Diamond, the former chief executive officer of Barclays, formed Atlas last year.
H.I.G. Growth Partners, the growth investment affiliate of H.I.G. Capital, has recapitalized F.H.G. Corporation (also known as Integrity Nutraceuticals), a product development manufacturer for the nutritional supplement industry. Integrity was represented by Partnership Capital Growth, a boutique investment bank. Miller Martin served as legal counsel to Integrity and McDermott Will & Emery served as legal counsel to H.I.G.
ToutApp, which provides sales acceleration solutions, has closed a $3.35 million Series A funding round led by Sigma West. ToutApp's existing investors include Founder Collective, 500 Startups Launch Fund and prominent angels including Esther Dyson, Eric Ries and Scott Banister.
Tapastic, an online portal for webcomics, has closed a $2 million Series A funding round from Daum Communications, owner of one of South Korea's largest Internet portal sites and a major operator of South Korean webcomics sites. Prior to the Series A round, Tapastic raised seed capital from a variety of angel investors.
UST Global, an information technology solutions and services company, has formed a strategic partnership with Blumberg Capital to introduce its customers to new technologies. Cyber defense solutions provider Cyvera and virtualized datacenter platform provider Nutanix are two companies working with UST's customers.
Cotap, an enterprise mobile messaging service, has raised $10 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to $15.5 million. Emergence Capital Partners led the round, with participation by existing investor Charles River Ventures.
MyActivityPal Inc., a mobile messaging and social networking app, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The investor was Sameer Gehlaut, chairman and co-founder of the $3.2 billion Indiabulls group. MyActivityPal is in stealth mode and set to launch in April 2014.
RenovoRX Inc., a medical device company based in Silicon Valley developing catheter technologies, has closed a $1.15 million Series B funding round. The round was led by U.S. angel group Golden Seeds, and was over-subscribed with all existing major investors participating including The Angels' Forum, Halo Fund, Sand Hill Angels and new investors Astia Angels and Amidzad Partners.
New Enterprise Associates has appointed Paul Palmieri, founder and former chairman and chief executive officer of Millennial Media, as venture advisor. Palmieri worked as president and CEO of Millennial Media from its start in 2006 to January.