VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Egress Software Technologies, a provider of cloud-based email and file encryption services, has received a £2.2 million investment from venture capital firm Albion Ventures, a statement about the funding said.

From a website that sells used snowboards, software startup Shopify has become an IT company that powers 100,000 online stores in more than 122 countries, VentureBeat reported.

CIA's former Chief Technology Officer Gus Hunt will be foraying into the venture capital space to serve as an advisor to investment firm Artis Ventures, VentureBeat reported.

Entrepreneurs’ most frequent complaint is how challenging it is to raise money, especially risk capital; founders in developing countries have even more difficulty since the amounts of venture money for investment in most emerging markets is less vs. the USA.

TraceLink Inc obtained a growth investment of $5.5 million in a round led by FirstMark Capital. Proceeds of the financing will be used for worldwide expansion and to finance more investments in its Life Sciences Cloud network platform.

Africa is already in the radar of large American technology corporations and venture capitalists as IBM, Microsoft and Intel Capital make bets on startups in the continent, TechCrunch reported.

Because of its worsening economic climate, private equity and venture capital investors have reduced fundraising for Brazil by more than 70% in the past two years, the Financial Times reported.

Even if venture capital invested a quarter of a billion euros in Ireland-based firms last year, the Irish fundraising market is already slowing, the Irish Examiner reported.

From the viewpoint of venture capital, the real victors of the recently-announced acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook are Sequoia Capital and Partner Jim Goetz, TechCrunch reported.

FireLayers, a cloud security startup backed by YL Ventures, has taken itself out of stealth mode. The startup provides tools that allow companies to securely use cloud applications.

Entrepreneurs and investors speak about the need and urgency to increase investment and Scale Up start-up communities in their countries. Yet when it's time to invest capital, the culture of risk impedes the flow of money from the wallets of local investors into the pockets of entrepreneurs.

Debu Purkayastha, a senior international executive who has worked with Google for six years, will be leaving the search giant to join the team at venture capital firm Octopus Investments, Tech Crunch reported.

Cornell University entrepreneurs and professors don't believe that a startup bubble is in the offing, despite what finance experts say, The Cornell Daily Sun reported.

Venture capital firm Social+Capital Partnership has appointed its former Entrepreneur in Residence or EIR Ray Ko to serve as its first Growth Partner, TechCrunch reported.

SportPursuit, a flash sales site based in the UK, nabbed £5M from its Series B financing round led by London-based venture capital firm DFJ Esprit and participated in by Silicon Valley Bank and angel investors, TechCrunch reported.