Monday, August 1, 2011

GlobalMojo lands VC, angel funds for apps that help charities

Greg Lamm on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 1:01pm PDT

Banking & Financial ServicesTechnologyAppsBrowsersVenture DealsAmazon.comFounder’s Co-opGlobalMojoYahooDaniel ToddBrad Crisp

Dan Todd

GlobalMojo Inc., which develops browser apps that let people direct money to their favorite charities, has raised more than $1 million to market the company’s products.

GlobalMojo has raised $1.15 million in angel investment and venture capital, including investment from Founder’s Co-op, a Seattle venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies, said CEO Daniel Todd.

According to a filing with the SEC, the company is seeking to raise a total of $1.55 million, and Todd said the company is on the verge of landing more investors to reach that goal.

GlobalMojo generates revenue from online companies that pay GlobalMojo to reach GlobalMojo’s users. GlobalMojo donates from 25 percent to 50 percent of the sales commission to charities or schools designated in advance by GlobalMojo users.

GlobalMojo has free apps for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explore. A version for Safari will be ready soon.

GlobalMojo has about 6,000 users, which the company has been using to tweak its app services. One change involved Yahoo, which pays GlobalMojo for sending people to its search engine using GlobalMojo’s apps. The GlobalMojo apps had reset personal search boxes to use Yahoo.

Users didn’t like having the option set to Yahoo, and GlobalMojo responded by removing the Yahoo base setting, although Yahoo remains a solid partner, Todd said.

The company has affiliation relationships with about 750 online sites.

The company, founded by veteran tech exec Brad Crisp, has six employees in San Francisco. Todd, who was hired as CEO in January, is in Redmond. The company is in the process of relocating its headquarters to Redmond, Todd said, because of the “Amazon law” passed in California that requires online retailers like Amazon.com to collect sales taxes on goods sold online to California customers.

The law has been controversial, with Amazon taking the lead to repeal it. Todd said because GlobalMojo has affiliate relationships with online companies, having a California address has causes them to lose their affiliation status with some sites that don’t want to be forced to comply with the California law.

Since Todd is already in this area, he said it made practical business sense to relocate the headquarters to Redmond.

Related coverage: Amazon supporting California sales tax referendum

Jg

Posted via email from jg2010's posterous

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