Ambient Industries Raises Additional Round of Funding from Amadeus and Eden Ventures for Flook, the Location Browser

SAN FRANCISCO, CA and LONDON, U.K. (PRWEB) February 1, 2010

Ambient Industries (http://www.ambientindustries.com), announced today that it has closed an additional round of funding led by the Amadeus Capital Partners and Eden Ventures. The capital infusion will be used for expansion and to increase development capability.

We have attracted loyal users who find that discovering and sharing the world around them with flook is a refreshing and creative change from other me-too location-based mobile applications said Ambient Industries co-founder Roger Nolan. Users are excited to discover quirky recommendations that they wouldnt find in the guide books and just as excited to express their creative side by creating flook cards sharing their own local secrets. Flooks competitive aspect allows users to take part in a real competition of skill, and to feel a genuine sense of accomplishment when their score increases.

We have seen so much potential realized from Ambient Industries and flook, said Will Dawson, partner Amadeus. We can’t wait to see how flook will continue to grow and to discover new ways in which people will use it. We see Ambient Industries in a unique niche where the discovery is more important than search, and creativity more important than simplistic game-playing.

“We see many investment opportunities in mobile applications, but flook hits a sweet spot of creativity, discovery and location that no other companies have, said Peter Jones, partner at Eden Ventures.

A video demo of flook is available here: http://flookblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/flook-sneak-peek-video/

ABOUT AMBIENT INDUSTRIES

Ambient Industries is a mobile software company founded by Roger Nolan, Jane Sales, Tristan Brotherton and Dave Jennings.

Nolan and Sales both worked at Psion, where they were responsible for the communications layer and the kernel, respectively. Their code was the foundation of the codebase that became Symbian OS and that still runs in millions of phones today. Jennings worked at the Parkes Radio-Telescope in Australia, was the first technical hire at Play.com and chief architect for Tigerex before joining Nolan at Sonopia. Brotherton founded FluidHR, which produced the U.K.s first online staff screen software platform and building software, before joining ROO Media/KIT Digital.

Ambient Industries is based in London and San Francisco. The company is funded by Amadeus and Eden Ventures. For more information, visit http://www.ambientindustries.com.

ABOUT AMADEUS

Amadeus Capital Partners is one of Europe’s leading technology venture capital firms. Since its inception in 1997, the firm has backed over 60 companies in industries that include communications and networking hardware and software, cleantech, medtech, computer hardware and software, media, and e-commerce. Amadeus has

Ambient Industries Raises Additional Round of Funding from Amadeus and Eden Ventures for Flook, the Location Browser

Zemanta Adds Seed Funding From Union Square Ventures Seedcamp 2007 Winner Receives First Investment from U.S. Firm

London (PRWEB) September 15, 2008

Zemanta (http://www.zemanta.com), the leading provider of content creation and discovery tools for bloggers around the world, today announced that the company had received seed funding from Union Square Ventures, the first American investor for the Slovenia founded company. The funds will be used to expand the company’s business development operations in the US.

By applying advanced text-processing algorithms, Zemanta reads user-created text, such as a blog post, article or web page, and recognizes the contextual content. Zemanta then combs the web for the most relevant images, smart links, keywords and text, and instantly serves these results so the user can enrich his or her content.

“I’ve been using Zemanta for several months on my personal blogs and it’s changed the way I work. Now I write and do my research at the same time, it’s a more efficient way to blog. In addition to recommending related content for me to read (and link to), Zemanta recommends images, hyperlinks and tags, all of which are incredibly useful to me,” said Fred Wilson, partner, Union Square Ventures. “But as I’ve used Zemanta more and more, I’ve come to realize that it can and should recommend many other things to me while I create content. What Zemanta has really built is the equivalent of adwords for content creators.”

Zemanta was founded in May 2007 by Botjan petič and Andra Tori, with the goal of simplifying the creation of online content. In September 2007, Zemanta was chosen as one of the winners of Seedcamp, an annual week-long event that brings together EMEA-based entrepreneurs who compete for venture capital funding. In March, Zemanta launched its beta service for bloggers which has been enthusiastically adopted among early adopters.

“Since HTML was introduced 10 years ago, online content tools have been largely unchanged,” said Botjan petič, Zemanta’s director of products, Zemanta. “We are changing the way people blog today and our mission is to transform the way online content is produced. Now, with the guidance and connections of Union Square Group, we can take our work to the next level.”

To date, Zemanta has also raised investment capital from Eden Ventures and The Accelerator Group.

About Zemanta

Zemanta the leading provider of content creation and discovery tools for bloggers around the world, has created an easy-to-use way to up your blogging game. With Zemanta, you can reach across the Internet to bring the photos, links, tags, reblogs and documents that add depth, credibility and entertainment to your blog. More importantly they help you increase you readership and hold onto your audience. A browser plug-in that also works within your blogging service, Zemanta delivers “smart sources”, which appear as you are typing. Available for FireFox and Internet Explorer, Zemanta works with multiple blogging engines including WordPress, MovableType and TypePad, Blogger, and 7 more. Zemanta is backed by Union Square Ventures, Eden Ventures and The Accelerator Group.

Press Contact:

Bostjan Spetic

Zemanta ltd.

+386 31 565 846

bostjan @ zemanta.com

Clarissa Horowitz

Sparkpr for Zemanta

415.321.1881

clarissa @ sparkpr.com

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Zemanta Adds Seed Funding From Union Square Ventures Seedcamp 2007 Winner Receives First Investment from U.S. Firm