VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Palo Alto, California-based single-page promotional website design platform raised $1.7 million in a seed funding round ledyby Founder's Co-op to expand its market reach, improve its products, and enable mobile content creation.

Paris-l’hospital, France-based car rental startup Drivy secured $8.3 million (€6 million) in a new funding round with Index Ventures and Alven Capital as lead investors to fuel its expansion in Europe.

San Francisco, California-based website testing and optimization platform Optimizely raised $57 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz to hire as many as 250 additional staff within this year.

Irvine, US-based fitness trainer app PEAR Sports took home $5 million in its Series B funding led by previous backers Innovate Partners and Nordic Ventures to ramp up its marketing efforts and third-party sales.

Venice, California-based online vitamin seller SmartyPants Vitamins bagged $2.2 million in a new capital raising via San Francisco-based equity crowdfunding platform CircleUp to develop new products and expand its workforce.

Atlanta, Georgia-based e-commerce lending firm Kabbage Inc landed $50 million in its Series D financing led by SoftBank Capital to provide $500 million worth of loans for small online businesses by the end of 2014.

San Jose, US-based payments giant PayPal fired Rakesh "Rocky" Agrawal as its vice president (VP) of strategy this weekend after releasing some insulting words about his colleagues on the social network Twitter.

San Francisco, US-based peer-to-peer lending marketplace pioneer Prosper raised $70 million in a funding round led by private equity firm Francisco Partners to build its business and fuel its growth.

Perth, Australia-based publicly listed firm Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Ltd secured $49.5 million in a placement of 90 million shares to its Australian and new US investors at $0.55 apiece for development of its Magnolia LNG facility.

Reston, Virginia-based social lending marketplace StreetShares bagged $1.2 million in its seed funding round with Accion Venture Lab as the lead investor to back veteran-owned and main street businesses after it launches this month.

San Francisco, California-based nutrition and fitness startup MyFitnessPal is set to launch localized apps with additional languages to build its audience in Asia, particularly in China, Japan, and South Korea.

Dublin, Ireland-based medical startup Mainstay Medical raised €18M as it completed a listing in the Iris Stock Exchange (ISE) to fund the clinical trials for its product in the US and Europe next year.

New York, US-based taxi service Yellow Cab bought its younger rival Rochester Taxi Co, which is owned by Roba Bati, for an undisclosed amount in a deal that will bring the latter under the Best Ride brand later on.

Mining tycoon Andrew Forrest acquired Perth, Western Australia-based beef processor and exporter Harvey Beef for an undisclosed amount through his company Minderoo, and announced expansion plans for the newly-acquired firm.

Ridgefield Park, New Jersey-based camera and photography equipment manufacturer C&A Marketing Inc added the already-bankrupt Chicago, Illinois-based photo chain Calumet Photographic Inc for $4 million to rebuild the shuttered business.