Comcast Leads $6.1 Million Round In Shopping-App Startup

Padopolis, a Silicon Valley startup that offers a shopping app for the iPad called Catalog Spree, raised $6.1 million in Series A funding led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from BlackBerry Partners Fund and El Dorado Ventures.

Since the company launched Catalog Spree in late April 2011, the app has grown to include more than 100 retail catalogs. According to Padopolis, Catalog Spree users spend more than 30 minutes on the app and view more than 100 pages per session on average.

"Catalog Spree is changing the way people engage with retail brands -- and the way brands interact with their customers," Michael Yang, managing director at Comcast Ventures, said in a statement. "The company excels at delivering an interactive user experience that defines the future of mobile shopping."

Los Altos, Calif.-based Padopolis, founded in 2010, also announced that it has hired three executives: Claudia Carpenter, vice president of user experience, a software engineer and a founder of Writely, which became Google Docs when it was acquired in 2006; Lee Bieber, vice president of engineering and operations, formerly with Rackspace, Intuit and Sun Microsystems; and Maggie Athoe, vice president of U.S. sales.