Facebook Application Development

Jason Langheier founded Zipongo in June 2011 to give families and parents an easier way to make healthier dietary choices by reducing the costs that so often get in the way. Through a web-based health community and iPhone app, Zipongo essentially combines the best of Mint.com and Groupon to create a service that gives users their own personalized wellness plans (and the ability to manage them), while offering discounts at the grocery stores they shop at the most.

To help it gear up for a full-scale launch later this summer (Zipongo is currently in private beta), the startup recently closed a round of seed capital ($1M+) from a flock of superangels and healthcare, tech and food marketing veterans. Those names include Flickr and Hunch co-founder Caterina Fake via Founder Collective, Wireless Generation co-founder and CEO Larry Berger, Peter Dolan, the Director of The Partnership for a Healthy America (and former CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb) and Guitar Hero and Blue Goji co-founder Kai Huang — to name a few.

Bloomspot, a local offers company launched back in 2010, is pulling back the proverbial kimono on its numbers in an effort to prove its business model works. Although sometimes lumped in with group deal providers like Groupon or Living Social, Bloomspot operates quite differently. Instead of group deals targeted at the masses, it offers exclusive deals targeted specifically at a merchant’s best customers.

Cartera Commerce, the largest provider of card-linked offers in the U.S., has just raised an additional $12.2 million in Series D funding, bringing its total raise to date to $43 million. The new round was led by Comvest Group, and included participation from all Cartera’s previous investors: Dace Ventures, Flybridge Capital, LBO Enterprises and Venture Capital Development Fund of New England.

The company, which is partnered with three of the four largest card issuers and all five of the largest airlines to power their loyalty programs, is planning to use the new infusion of capital to expand its local offers products known as OfferLink Local.

Decide.com, the shopping search site for consumer electronics and home appliances founded by former Farecast engineers, is now putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak. The service, which helps consumers know whether to “buy” or “wait” when researching items like laptops, phones, TVs, washers and dryers, wants to make it easier to trust its recommendations with the launch of a price guarantee.

With Decide’s new “Got Your Back” program, if you click to buy an item the service recommends and the price drops within two weeks, the company will automatically send you a payment for the difference.

Shopping discovery service Zoomingo, which helps you find nearby sales using your mobile phone, is out with a new iPhone app that introduces a gamification element to its platform. Local shoppers are now being encouraged to share the unreported sales they spot in the wild as well as rate those spotted by others.

By playing the new “Hot or Not” game within the app to rate deals, shoppers earn points while also training the service’s branded “ZoomSense” recommendation engine to present more deals matching their interests.