HomeAway not GoingAway

Seems the HomeAway gang is not taking a trip down to failed dot com beach anytime soon:

HomeAway Breaks Ground on State-of-the-Art World Headquarters: Schlosser Development Further Expands Downtown Market District

HomeAway, Inc. Selects Publicis in the West and Digitas for Global Assignment

HomeAway Raises Record $250 Million in Private Financing

Here Comes the Sun(-Times) Doo Da Doo Doo

Austin-based social media service company, Pluck, should be announcing a partnership with the Sun-Times News Group later today:

Pluck Brings Social Media To Sun-Times News Group

TechCrunch Event In Austin

“TechCrunch is heading South for a Meet-Up in Austin, Texas with the team from Austin Ventures. We are landing in town on Thursday, September 25 just in time for the Austin City Limits music festival.”

Don’t get too excited…the first 200 tickets were gobbled up in a matter of minutes.

TechCrunch’s founder, Michael Arrington, promises that more tickets will be released, but no word on when.

Looks like he used Twitter to make the first announcement, so I’m guessing he’ll do the same next time.

L.L. Bean adds Reviews via Bazaarvoice

L.L. Bean is “a trusted source for quality apparel, reliable outdoor equipment and expert advice”, so it makes sense that they would use a trusted source for customer ratings and reviews management…Bazaarvoice.

Leading retailer encourages customers to tell other people about the L.L.Bean products they own; more than 13,000 reviews submitted to www.llbean.com within one week

Another Round for Bazaarvoice

The Austin Business Journal is reporting that Austin-based Austin Ventured-backed Bazaarvoice has closed on $7.1 million in a Series C round of funding. This infusion will be used to accelerate international growth and increase headcount.

Here’s the full article: Bazaarvoice gets $7 million infusion

Congrats to Brett Hurt and his team! (Checkout job openings here: Bazaarvoice Jobs)

Homeaway Buys Yet Another

EscapeHomes latest buy for fast-growing HomeAway

Like BarCamp but for Products

Paul Young, Director of Product Management at NetStreams, just sent me a note in regards to this upcoming product management/marketing event…it’s sponsored by Austin Ventures, Pragmatic Marketing, and others.

“ProductCamp is Austin’s first community organized unconference on Product Marketing and Management topics. We are modeling ProductCamp after the popular BarCamp concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp) and the whole event is being developed by and for professionals involved in the product management, marketing, and development process. This is a free event that is open to the public – the only cost is participation.”

When = Saturday June 14th, 2008, 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Where = St. Edward’s University Professional Education Center (PEC)
Website = Product Camp Austin

Did I mention that it is sponsored by Austin Ventures? 🙂

Austin Venture’s $50m Dump into Social Networking

Austin Ventures recruits Razorfish founder for new $50 million venture

Lucky Mother Pluck-ers

Austin-based web 2.0 company Pluck, who was recently purchased by Demand Media, made a bunch of Pluck-ers happy early last week. Word on the street is that Pluck-ers were paid cash money for their vested “shares” of Pluck and were given “shares” of Demand Media for their non-vested Pluck “shares”.

Ok, so this is not earth-shattering news, but I think it’s great to see a post-dot-com-bust company do well and reward its employees while other companies are failing or laying people off or selling out for low amounts.

Click Forensics gets $10 million infusion

Austin-based and Austin Ventures backed Click Forensics has landed $10 million in venture funding which puts its raised total to $15 million in the last two years. The company develops software that detects fraudulent internet activity. Their main focus is detective fraud in the paid search arena. The Click Fraud Network, as they call it, uses algorithms to sniff out suspicious clicks and other possible problems. Other investors include Shasta Ventures and Sierra Ventures.