STELLAService And Its Army Of Online Secret Shoppers Raise $15 Million Series B Round

jordy leiser stellaservice

STELLAService, a customer service rating company for e-commerce sites, has raised a $15 million Series B round led by Norwest Venture Partners.

Existing investors Battery Ventures, DFJ Gotham Ventures, RRE Ventures and Forerunner Ventures all contributed to the financing.

In addition to raising the new round, STELLAService is publicly launching a paid data product that will help partnering e-commerce companies get customer service dirt on their employees, and their competitors.

"At the end of the day, many sites sell the same sort of items, and customer service becomes what makes a shopper pick one site over another," CEO Jordy Leiser tells Business Insider.

STELLAService pays thousands of mystery shoppers daily to buy items from sites like Nordstrom.com and Gilt Groupe, call customer service teams and ask questions, then return products. The mystery shoppers take detailed notes of the entire experience and rate the companies on response time, helpfulness, shipping time, and more. 

All of the data they collect gets put into the new subscription data product. Smaller companies pay a few thousand dollars for either annual or semi-annual reports. Larger companies, which are tracked daily by STELLAService's mystery shoppers, pay six-figures annually for monthly customer service reports. Leiser says the data product has been in private beta for a few months, and it already has paying customers.

STELLAService will use the new revenue stream as well as the Series B financing to hire a large research team and make the data product more comprehensive. The company will also be moving its headquarters to lower Manhattan; it's a finalist in Bloomberg's "Take the Helm" initiative, which is granting STELLAService $250,000 to move its office downtown. STELLAService is a New York-based startup that has raised more than $22 million to date.

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Forget Einhorn, Apple Needs To Lay Out Its Plan For Growth Markets

While the court ruling doesn?t imply that Apple will implement Einhorn?s preferred share proposal, it helped bring back some optimism in the stock, sending it back over $450 in trading Friday.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/02/27/forget-einhorn-apple-needs-to-lay-out-its-plan-for-growth-markets/

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The Most Elite Special Forces In The US

Special Ops American

Ever since the Osama bin Laden raid, America has gone bonkers for U.S. Navy SEALs and Military Special Operators in general.

Skip to the units >

The Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, is scheduled for spending and personnel increases while the rest of the military looks to be making cuts. End strength goals indicate that America's entire crop of military operators will top off at 70,000.

In fact, the number of operators has doubled since 9/11, and their budget tripled — from $3.5 billion to $10.5 billion. The trend will likely continue as the U.S. is in the middle of a shift to "smaller footprint" type operations.

Putting 100 thousand troops and countless private support personnel on the ground in any given country — sometimes referred to as "nation building" — is a costly strategy. Putting a boot or two on Osama bin Laden's door arguably cost more in political currency — Pakistan wasn't too happy — than actual currency.

Though it was the SEALs who performed that raid in Abbottabad, it's worth noting there are quite a few more SpecOps units in the U.S. than just SEALs — Green Berets and Marine Snipers, etc. — so we here at Business Insider have made things easy by assembling a comprehensive list of all the SpecOps units we could find (with help from the extensive descriptions on AmericanSpecialOps.com).

Division Marine Recon

Marine Reconnaissance teams provide intelligence for active small unit operations on the battlefield. Those with Marine Sniper quals can also provide accurate demoralizing small arms fire from a distance.

Marine Recon is arguably in the top five of all special operators — capable of harassing an entire enemy battalion for long periods of time; tracking enemy units for larger American forces; or conducting well-orchestrated raids on high-valued targets.

These guys are the gems in the crown of the United States Marine Corps.

Air Force Special Operations Weatherman

No, it's not a joke. They can literally forecast the weather above a fight, kill the enemy, and direct artillery — simultaneously.

The official mission of the U.S. Air Force field weatherman is as a ground-level, small-unit meteorologist who provides accurate forecasts for the purpose of air asset deployment (bombs and stuff).

USMC Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company ? ANGLICO

The Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company is another group that often finds itself in the shadow of sexier special operations units like the SEALs. A single ANGLICO Marine can coordinate a hellish rain of fiery artillery and air-strafing fire on the enemy though, whereas all a SEAL can do is pull a trigger.

Typically they don't deploy as individuals, but like any SpecOps group, in teams of four or five.

A typical ANGLICO team:

  • Team Leader (Captain or Navy Lieutenant): any ground MOS - typically JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller)-qualified artillery officer.
  • Team Chief (Sergeant), typically qualified as JFO (joint fires observer) and as a JTAC.
  • Radio Chief (Corporal or Sergeant).
  • Junior Radio Operator (Private First Class / Lance Corporal).
  • Fire Support Man / Scout Observer (Private First Class / Lance Corporal).

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Budweiser Accused Of Watering Down Beer!

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Beer lovers across the U.S. have filed $5 million class-action lawsuits accusing Anheuser-Busch of watering down its Budweiser, Michelob and other brands.

The suits, filed in Pennsylvania, California and other states, claim consumers have been cheated out of the alcohol content stated on labels. Budweiser and Michelob each boast of being 5 percent alcohol, while some "light" versions are said to be just over 4 percent.

The lawsuits are based on information from former employees at the company's 13 U.S. breweries, some in high-level plant positions, according to lead lawyer Josh Boxer of San Rafael, Calif.

"Our information comes from former employees at Anheuser-Busch, who have informed us that as a matter of corporate practice, all of their products mentioned (in the lawsuit) are watered down," Boxer said. "It's a simple cost-saving measure, and it's very significant."

The excess water is added just before bottling and cuts the stated alcohol content by 3 percent to 8 percent, he said.

Anheuser-Busch InBev called the claims "groundless" and said its beers fully comply with labeling laws.

"Our beers are in full compliance with all alcohol labeling laws. We proudly adhere to the highest standards in brewing our beers, which have made them the best-selling in the U.S. and the world," Peter Kraemer, vice president of brewing and supply, said in a statement.

The suit involves 10 Anheuser-Busch products: Budweiser, Bud Ice, Bud Light Platinum, Michelob, Michelob Ultra, Hurricane High Gravity Lager, King Cobra, Busch Ice, Natural Ice and Bud Light Lime.

Anheuser-Busch, based in St. Louis, Mo., merged with InBev in 2008 to form the world's largest alcohol producer, headquartered in Belgium. In 2011, the company produced 22 billion gallons of alcoholic beverages, 3 billion of them in the U.S., and reported $22 billion in profits, the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, the company has sophisticated equipment that measures the alcohol content throughout the brewing process and is accurate to within one-hundredth of a percent. But after the merger, the company increasingly chose to dilute its popular brands of beer, the lawsuit alleged.

"Following the merger, AB vigorously accelerated the deceptive practices described below, sacrificing the quality products once produced by Anheuser-Busch in order to reduce costs," said the lead lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of consumers in the lower 48 states.

Companion suits are being filed this week in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and elsewhere.

The named Pennsylvania plaintiffs, Thomas and Gerald Greenberg of Ambler, said they buy six cases of the affected Anheuser-Busch products a month. They did not immediately return a message Tuesday, and Boxer would not elaborate on their purchases except to say the consumer-protection suit does not involve retailers or bar owners.

One of the California plaintiffs, Nina Giampaoli of Sonoma County, said she bought a six-pack of Budweiser every week for the past four years.

"I think it's wrong for huge corporations to lie to their loyal customers — I really feel cheated. No matter what the product is, people should be able to rely on the information companies put on their labels," Giampaoli said in a news release issued by Boxer's law firm.

Bloomberg News first reported Tuesday on the lawsuits.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Boxer said he has evidence to corroborate the former employees' allegations, but stopped short of saying the beers had been independently tested.

"AB (Anheuser-Busch) never intends for the malt beverage to possess the amount of alcohol that is stated on the label. As a result, AB's customers are overcharged for watered-down beer and AB is unjustly enriched by the additional volume it can sell," the lawsuit said.

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A Million Bucks In Scholarships ? That?s Not Me Kidding around!

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The post A Million Bucks In Scholarships – That’s Not Me Kidding around! appeared first on legal debt help online.

Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2012/06/26/a-million-bucks-in-scholarships-thats-not-me-kidding-around/

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25 Regular People Who Married Royalty

Kate MiddletonFrom the media circus of Kate Middleton and Prince William's wedding to the marriage of a Ugandan Princess and an American businessman, the general public is obsessed with royal romance.

And that goes double when a member of the monarchy is marrying a commoner.

We have rounded up 25 commoners who have married into monarchies from all around the globe.

Jetsun Pema became the Queen of Bhutan.

Official Title: Her Majesty The Queen of Bhutan

The Prince first met Jetsun when she was 7 years old and he was 17 at a family picnic. He told her that if she was still single and he was still single when she grew up, they would marry.

He was true to his word. On October 13, 2011, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck Bhutanese married his 20-year-old bride in a traditional Buddhist ceremony.

Grace Kelly became the Princess of Monaco.

Official Title: Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco

The movie star met Rainier, The Sovereign Prince of Monaco, on a photo shoot that she almost skipped. Their courtship was hurried along by American priest Father Francis Tucker, Rainier's aide and advisor.

They were married on April 19, 1956, but the marriage was cut short on September 14, 1982 by Grace Kelly's car accident and untimely death. They had three children together.

Christopher Thomas became the Prince of Uganda.

Official Title: Prince Christopher Thomas

Princess Ruth Komuntale of Uganda was studying at American University in Washington DC when she met Christopher Thomas, an accountant working at Discovery Channel in Silver Spring. They started dating, and Christopher proposed at a local Ruth's Chris Steak House.

But it wasn't until after their engagement that Christopher realized how integral Ruth was in Uganda's Toro Kingdom. Christopher was officially accepted into the royal family, and the couple was married on November 17, 2012 in Uganda.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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