Bitcoin Exchange startup, Buttercoin is shutting down this week as they havent been able to generate new funding. Backed by investors included Google Ventures and Y Combinator, Buttercoin pulled in more than $1 million in funding in 2013. But then came the boom — with bitcoins soaring in value to well over $1,000 — and then the collapse in value to just above $200. Now most investors appear to be more interested in mainstream applications of Bitcoin’s blockchain technology than in the cryptocurrency itself.

Unlike most recent Bitcoin startups’ shutdowns owing to unscrupulous activities or loss of money, Buttercoin is solvent and will provide users with their balance in full.“With the dip in Bitcoin interest among Silicon Valley investors, we weren’t able to generate enough venture capital interest to continue funding Buttercoin.” they said in a statement.

“Buttercoin will be turning off our service on April 10th at 11PM Pacific,” the company said in a note on its website. “Be sure to move your bitcoins to another service and remove your dollar balances by Friday April 10th at 11PM.”

Buttercoin raised a total of $1.6 million from investors, including Google Ventures’ Kevin Rose and Chris Hutchins, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, Floodgate, Initialized Capital, Rothenberg Ventures and Switzerland’s Centralway, via its first early-stage investment fund.

(image credit: BTC Keychain)

The San Francisco-based company offers a cloud-based system to automate tax calculations and payroll payments. 10,000 small businesses already use ZenPayroll’s web-based services.

“We are proud to welcome Google Capital to the ZenPayroll community. Not only does Google exemplify the power of technology to improve people’s lives, they also share our core belief that people are the most important part of every business,” ZenPayroll’s CEO and co-founder Joshua Reeves said.

Google Capital which is known to invest in more established businesses made an exception with startup Zenpayroll. To this Laela Sturdy, a partner at Google Capital, told Business Insider “Josh and team have built an incredible business and a product that customers love that can solve a huge pain point for millions of businesses,”. About the Series B round she said, “We’re looking for growth-stage companies that have Google-sized aspirations in their industries, technology with huge long-term potential, and great management teams. ZenPayroll fits the bill across the board.

ZenPayroll, which is valued at $560 million, says it processes billions of dollars in payroll annually, and by the end of this month, will work with businesses in every US state.

Zenpayroll offers a range of cloud based services like managing payrolls and employee accounts, aid with new hiring, contractor payments and 1099 forms, Tax filing, calculations and payment direct deposit, unlimited payroll runs, year-end W-2s and 1099s for $29 per month plus $4 per employee and other payroll related services.

Officially launched just two years back by Stanford graduates Joshua Reeves, Edward Kim, and Tomer London, Zenpayroll’s growth has been exceptional with revenue increasing by $400 million in just one year. “This is the fastest growing company we’ve seen in a few years,” says Laela Sturdy. She adds that while ZenPayroll will always continue to serve small businesses, there’s also a significant opportunity in providing simple services for larger businesses.

(image credit: Laurent Lebaux)

Initially created in 2013, the fund is intended for later stage growth investments which is in contrast with the early stage investments that the sibling fund Google Ventures specializes in. Investments made by Google Capital include Survey Monkey, Lending Club and MapR Technologies.

Citing that the country of 1.2 billion recently surpassed the U.S. in terms of its number of Internet users, Google Capital partner David Lawee told The Wall Street Journal that “It makes a lot of sense to focus on India right now,” and that local entrepreneurs “are responding” with “innovative” offerings for the domestic market and thinking about global growth, as well.

According to Tech Crunch, a Google spokesperson confirmed plans to hire an India-based Google Capital representative, although it is not yet clear where that person will be based. Google capital has been eyeing the Asian market for a while now. While  it led a $38 million round in InnoLight Technology Corporation, a Chinese company making cloud computing optical transceivers, it has also invested an undisclosed amount in Bangalore (IN) based CommonFloor.com, India’s leading online real estate platform that combines property search, apartment management and vendor management and caters to a person’s complete residential requirements; as well as freshdesk, a SaaS-based customer support platform that provides multi-channel support to more than 23,000 customers in 118 countries via phone, which includes India and China.

SoftBank and Tiger Global are among other investors who have set up shop in India recently. SoftBank which has already invested in Uber-rival Ola, Housing.com and e-commerce Snapdeal, reportedly plans to invest 10 billion in India.. E-commerce startup Flipkart in July said it had raised $1 billion in new funding from Tiger Global Management, Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Amazon also said that month it would invest $2 billion to expand its operations in India.

(image credit: Dinuraj K)

Credit Karma, a Web-based consumer finance and technology startup, procured $75 million in an add-on growth round of funding. Participation came from existing investors Google Capital, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital and Susquehanna Growth Equity, bringing the total to $193.5 million in equity investments so far.

Eight months after raising $85 million in the Series C round and a customer base increment of 50 percent, Credit Karma is now valued at more than a billion dollars following the new round of funding.

“We believe this investment speaks to two themes: Continued confidence that we are the industry’s leading consumer credit and finance platform, and repeated strong consumer demand for our product,” noted Ken Lin, CEO and founder of Credit Karma. “Today’s complex marketplace requires a pro-consumer resource that makes financial comprehension easy, transparent and empowering. Credit Karma delivers that.”

Credit Karma provides free credit reports to users, with tools to monitor their finances and assists in choosing suitable vendor for credit cards, loans or mortgages. Its revenue, on the other hand, is generated through sponsorships with financial institutions that pay Credit Karma only when its members buy one of their products.

Founded in 2008, it has an 30 million users according to their press release. Credit Karma announced that they will utilise the new funding to fuel its growth initiatives and ongoing product innovation.

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(Image Credit: Sean MacEntee)

In the past few months, Hadoop vendors Hortonworks and Cloudera have seen big funding rounds, with many commentators suggesting that MapR was falling behind. Today, however, it was announced that MapR has raised $110 million in combined equity and debt financing. The majority of the funding — $80 million – was in equity and was led by Google Capital with support from Qualcomm Ventures. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, NEA, and Mayfield Fund also participated in the funding round. The remaining $30 million was in the form of debt, which was led by Silicon Valley Bank.

John Schroeder, CEO and co-founder of MapR, said in a statement:

“Google has a long-standing commitment to Hadoop, making Google Capital an ideal investor for MapR. This investment round recognises our customers’ rapid adoption, their tremendous results and ROI, and also the capital efficiency of our business model.”

“It’s extremely gratifying to bring these high-calibre strategic investors on board, including Qualcomm who is the leader in the mobile ecosystem and also at the forefront of the Internet of Things, to help us accelerate growth and position the company for global leadership. Our installed base of more than 500 paying licensees provides a strong foundation and we are excited to move forward with the tremendous resources from our new and current financial investors.”

As Re/Code poignantly note, the investment in MapR marks the third nine-figured funding deal for a Hadoop company this year, bringing the total invested in the space to over $1.1 billion.

The recent investment in MapR brings the total amount raised to $139 million in equity capital since the company was founded in 2009. Just like its competitors, Hortonworks and Cloudera, the company’s CEO said it is preparing for an IPO, which could be seen as early as the second half of next year.

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(image credit: Google Capital)