$1 million for Tipjoy's virtual tipjar

Sanjay Vakil e-mailed yesterday to point out that Tipjoy, a Y Combinator start-up, just raised $1 million.

We'd been talking earlier this week about the reluctance of Boston VC's to support the very early-stage start-ups that come through Paul Graham's Y Combinator program.

Tipjoy is an interesting case...none of its investors are from Boston. The company went through Y Combinator on the west coast, and seemed like it was going to settle out there, last time I talked to the founders. But Abby and Ivan Kirigin (veterans of Nokia and iRobot) also own a house in Arlington, MA -- and so perhaps the inability to sell it has brought them back East...(I'm just speculatin'...)

Update: Abby Kirigin writes via e-mail that since NYC-based Betaworks led the round, "They wanted us to be near, we wanted to be back in Boston. ...We are involved in the startup scene here in Boston. Betaworks has got us plugged into a great network in New York. And, we've got great investors on the West Coast (Chris Sacca, David Shen Ventures, Trilogy), and in Europe (TAG, Taavet Hinrikus)."

The other example worth mentioning is Iminlikewithyou, a New York Y Combinator alum that got $1.5 million over the summer from a group of investors that included Spark Capital of Boston.

I first wrote about Tipjoy back in March...