Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Second Rotation's first round equals $4.4M

Waltham's Second Rotation Inc., which automates the sale of products on websites such as eBay or Craigslist, reports it has raised $4.4 million in Series A funding from investors that included Venrock and three angel investors. Second Rotation plans to use the capital for product development combined with increased sales and marketing, company officials said.

Waltham technologist Rousseau Aurelien, former director of OEM business development at Burlington software marker Signiant Inc., founded Second Rotation in 2006. Backed with $2 million in angel investment, Aurelien developed a "dynamic pricing calculator," which is designed to calculate the value of electronic goods listed by users.

If the user agrees to the price, Second Rotation provides a shipping label and pays for the item to be shipped to its Waltham headquarters, where it is then inspected. If everything checks out, the company pays the user within 10 days and then lists the item for sale online.

The company generates revenue via a 35 percent markup on each item. Last year, cell phones and personal digital assistants comprised the most popular product categories, followed by iPods and digital cameras, according to Aurelien.

He also said the website attracted 50,000 visitors and created 1,000 new accounts during the first three weeks of operation.

Second Rotation also announced a board of directors with five new members: David Beisel, vice president of Venrock; Austin Ligon, co-founder and former CEO of Virginia-based CarMax Inc.; Mike Tyrrell, general partner at Venrock; Ashton Peery, a former general partner at Lucent Venture Partners; and Henry Vogel, former chief revenue officer of New York-based Quigo Technologies Inc.

Ligon, Peery and Vogel are also Second Rotation angel investors.