VENTURE CAPITAL POST

In its 14th acquisition, San Francisco, US-based publishing platform developer Automattic bought New York City-based code-free website creation startup Scroll Kit for an undisclosed amount to integrate the latter's features into WordPress.

Tom Preston-Werner, the co-founder and president of San Francisco, US-based social coding network, stepped down from his position after former employee Julie Horvath claimed she experienced gender-based harassment and retaliation in the company.

Although Google reportedly considered San Francisco, US-based mobile payments system Square Inc as a potential acquisition or merger candidate, the latter denied reports that it has entered acquisition talks with search giant.

Preact announced releasing a new software platform that makes uses of "leading-edge behavioral science, machine learning, and big data analytics" along with receiving a Series A funding round valued USD4.6 million led by Trinity Ventures.

Cloud storage giant Dropbox spent an undisclosed amount to add San Francisco, US-based photo and video cloud storage and smart collaborative tool Hackpad to expand its product offering and improve its auto-upload features.

AngelPad has been rearing startups prior to their public debut and today, during its Spring Demo Day, the company would launch 11 startups to a roomful of investors, techies and the media.

San Francisco, US-based social media conversation startup Talkwheel raised $1.2 million in funding from several angel investors to aggregate the conversations on the web in a visual map so businesses can monitor trending topics.

US-based game developers' platform Unity Technologies added San Francisco, California-based predictive analytics startup Playnomics for an undisclosed amount to step out of game engine into the game services sector.

San Francisco, US-based fundraising site and investor-startup community AngelList launched its new venture capital (VC) fund called Maiden Lane, which will invest in syndicated AngelList deals.

Venture capital firms in the US have raised a record-breaking total funding amounting to $8.9 billion in the first quarter of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.

The CRM giant Salesforce would invest in a new building tower in San Francisco valued USD560 million, reported TechCrunch.

San Francisco, US-based application programming interfaces (APIs) debugging and testing tool provider Runscope nabbed $6 million in its first funding round led by General Catalyst Partners to start selling its products.

San Francisco, US-based online food delivery startup Munchery raised $28 million in a Series B funding round led by Sherpa Ventures to bring its service to Seattle and other places in the US.

San Francisco, US-based social music apps maker Smule scored $16.6 million in a new funding round led by Roth Capital Partners to develop its products and fuel its expansion into Asia.

RideScout, a transportation aggregating app that was previously available in Austin and Washington only, launched its service in San Francisco to help more people find the best route to get to their destination in real-time.