VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Bloomthat, a flower delivery startup based in San Francisco, pulled in seed funding from investors that included SV Angel and Ashton Kutcher amounting to $2 million, TechCrunch reported.

Y Combinator, SV Angel, Max Levchin and other investors provided seed funds amounting to $2 million to San Francisco, California-based "pre-commerce" platform Celery to help grow the team and develop its storefront features.

DataRank was able to secure $1.4 million in seed funds in a round led by New Road Ventures and joined in by FundersClub and other angels. Data Rank enables companies to track conversations about their brands online.

Mountain View, California based seed accelerator Y Combinator (YC) announced that it will restrict its partner investments until three weeks after demo day to give all its startups an equal chance to raise funds.

Costa Mesa, California-based firm GrowthHackers opened a community news site today where members can post resources and learning materials centered around growth hacking or marketing.

Chicago, Illinois-based tutoring marketplace WyzAnt acquired New York-based Tutorspree, a fellow marketplace competitor, that has been closed down since September 2013, for an undisclosed amount.

After years of continued growth since the first modern accelerator began in 2005, the startup accelerator trend has slowed for the first time in 2013, according to a report from TechCrunch.

San Francisco-based alternative payday loans startup LendUp raised USD14 million in its first venture round led by Google Ventures to lend money to people with poor credit.