tech:

taffy

TastemakerX Raises $1.8 Million Series A

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

TastemakerX  has raised $1.8 million in funding. The company will release its debut TastemakerX Music mobile app as a private beta in early March 2012.

Investors in this round of financing include Guggenheim Partners (Billboard, C3, Variety Magazine), Baseline Ventures (Task Rabbit, Instagram), True Ventures (Schematic Labs, Automattic) AOL Ventures (bit.ly, Solve Media) and Tekton Ventures (Seamless Receipts, DoodleDeals). Additionally, the company has attracted Internet and music industry advisors John Battelle, Marc Geiger, Ian Rogers, Paul Bricault and Ted Rheingold and angel investors Andrew Anker, Mich Mathews, Michael Kassan and Mike McGinley.

TastemakerX is social gaming platform that allows users to build portfolios of personal tastes and share it to their social graph. The TastemakerX Music mobile app enables fans to discover artists, trends and inspiration; compete against other tastemakers; and share experiences through geo-tagging, commentary and photo sharing. TastemakerX is a San Francisco-based company founded by Marc Ruxin and Sandro Pugliese in August 2011.  The company founders both started their careers in the A&R department at EMI records in the early 1990s.

Just in

Vercel raises $250M

San Francisco-based Vercel, a frontend cloud platform provider, has secured $250 million in Series E funding, bringing the company's valuation to $3.25 billion.

Worky raises $6M (Mexico)

Mexico City-based Worky, a provider of HR and payroll software solutions for Mexican companies, has closed a $6 million Series A financing round.

Amazon announces $1.31B investment in France

Amazon has announced a new investment of about $1.31 billion (€1.2 billion) in France, which the company says will lead to the creation of over 3,000 permanent jobs in the country.

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky to step down — CNBC

Adam Selipsky, CEO of Amazon’s cloud computing business, will step down from his role next month. Matt Garman, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Amazon Web Services, will succeed Mr. Selipsky after he exits the company June 3, writes Annie Palmer. 

Palo Alto Networks, Accenture expand alliance to offer generative AI services

Palo Alto Networks and Accenture have announced the expansion of their strategic alliance to provide new offerings that combine Palo Alto Networks' Precision AI technology with Accenture's secure generative AI services.