VENTURE CAPITAL POST

San Mateo, US-based open platform as a service Cloud Foundry is about to become more popular by launching the Cloud Foundry Foundation, which will help servers deploy software apps of developers under an open-source Apache license.

Illinois, US-based agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) invested $25 million in equity in Menlo Park, California-based renewable chemicals firm Rennovia as its latest venture into renewable plastics.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper planned to split California into six states and make Silicon Valley a separate state, and the plan has not gained approval to collect signatures for voting.

Menlo Park, US-based social media giant Facebook will be kicking off its yearly Hacker Cup competition at the company's head office today with 25 participants from North America, Asia, and Europe.

San Francisco, US-based fitness tracking firm Fitbit issued a voluntary recall of its wristband activity tracker Fitbit Force after a small percentage of users reported skin irritation, and promised to release a new version of the product.

Google Ventures general partner Rich Miner will join the board of directors of San Francisco, US-based mobile app performance management (mAPM) firm Crittercism to replace Wesley Chan, who left Google Ventures to establish his own company.

Tech giant Apple added app testing platform maker Burstly, owner of mobile app testing tool TestFlight, for an undisclosed amount, according to sources.

San Francisco, California-based crowdfunding firm Crowdtilt launched an open source crowdfunding solution called Crowdtilt n that supports Bitcoin and allows anyone to start a campaign on their own websites.

California-based big data startup BlueTalon bagged $1.5 million in a seed funding round from Data Collective for its single-click data collaboration offering for enterprises.

Los Angeles, US-based e-commerce firm Shopzilla snapped up Ventura, California-based online ad startup Connexity for an undisclosed amount to to beef up its audience-buying division.

San Francisco, California-based music startup SoundFocus raised $1.7 million in a funding round to develop an iPhone app that adjusts music according to the user's hearing abilities.

Santa Clara, US-based stealthy business security firm Apprity scored $8 million in its first venture round from security tech investors Promod Haque and Gaurav Garg to expand its engineering and research and development teams.

San Luis Obispo, US-based health and wellness software firm Mindbody picked up $50 million in a funding round led by W Capital Partners to boost its web and mobile offerings for health clubs and yoga studios.

San Francisco, US-based startup software developer Strevus bagged $6.5 million in its first institutional funding led by Blumberg Capital and US Venture Partners for compliance solutions for financial services firms.

California, US-based payments firm PayPal said it will open its new mobile software development kit (SDK) to all mobile developers across 30 countries starting February 24 to make way for a more convenient PayPal checkout in mobile apps.