<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, claria]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, claria]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/claria http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/claria <![CDATA[Sneaky ad startup Jellycloud deflates, taking $50 million-plus with it]]> The online-ad network market is clogged with startups; most are bound to fail. But no death may be greeted with more joy than Jellycloud, the latest incarnation of Gator, a startup whose software was caught spying on users. A tipster tells us Jellycloud, with 36 employees, went under this weekend, with liquidators repossessing their furniture. A hard death, after a questionable birth.

Gator had changed its name to Claria, and raised some $40 million to launch a personalized homepage which never caught on. In the sneakiest move of all, it then raised $11.5 million under a new company name, JellyCloud, with the same set of executives as Claria — Scott Vandevelde and Scott Eagle among them. Was Jellycloud just Claria reborn? It's now a moot point, if our tipster's report is accurate. And a painful mistake for US Venture Partners, SoftBank, Sand Hill Capital and Crosslink Capital — who have managed to lose $11.5 million in just five months.

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5056918&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Claria Poisoned Browsers, Now Workers]]> Valleywag reader sends this:

Claria has started catering in food for the whole office, in order to keep workers at their desks that much longer. A third of the office has since come down with some kind of stomach bug.
Sue-happy spyware company Gator Claria was in the news last year after Microsoft considered aquiring the company but in the end passed. More recently Claria pledged to clean up their act and become a less evil online marketing company. Microsoft was wise to not swallow this poison pill.]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=209875&view=rss&microfeed=true