VENTURE CAPITAL POST

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.

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.

Boulder, US-based robotic toy maker Orbotix raised $15.5 million in its Series D funding round led by Shea Ventures to create new categories of connected toys and to expand globally.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based e-book deals service BookBub scored $3.8 million in its first funding round led by NextView Ventures and Founder Collective to expand its workforce and services and tap into international markets.

Fremont, US-based intellectual property (IP) management firm Lecorpio bagged $10 million in an unneeded funding round with Los Angeles-based investor M2O to guarantee the safe exchange of ideas and information for its enterprise clients.

Washington, US-based software giant Microsoft acquired Wellington, New Zealand-based cloud computing firm GreenButton for an undisclosed amount to incorporate it into the Azure public cloud platform to give companies remote access to software.