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New Media News Every Morning

RightScale raises $13 million in funding

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Cloud computing management RightScale, Inc. has secured $13 million in its second round of venture capital funding, led by Index Ventures. Current investor Benchmark Capital, which led RightScale’s first round of venture financing, also participated in this round.

RightScale will use the proceeds to accelerate product and market development of its cloud computing management platform to meet growing demand, including support for new clouds and expansion into additional geographic markets.

RightScale’s web-based cloud computing management platform lets any organization tap the enormous power of cloud computing for scalable, cost-effective IT infrastructure on demand, while maintaining complete control and flexibility. RightScale reduces the complexity of cloud computing, enabling organizations to deploy mission critical applications in a matter of hours, without the risk of lock-in at any level. With sophisticated “cloud-aware” server templates, the fully-automated RightScale platform requires little knowledge of cloud architecture to deploy, manage and dynamically scale even complex, multi-cloud applications.

Originally posted on December 9, 2008 @ 3:57 pm

SnapMyLife raises $5 million in new funding for mobile photo-sharing community

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Mobile photo-sharing site SnapMyLife has raised a new $5 million round of funding, led by current investors North Bridge Venture Partners and Carmel Ventures. This investment will be used to further expand SnapMyLife’s service with new features, stronger international presence and global partnerships.

“Three billion mobile phones worldwide enable people to instantly capture and share moments of their lives. SnapMyLife is the first mobile-oriented service to allow a wide range of consumers to easily share photos, while building a global community of friends,” said George Grey, founder and CEO of SnapMyLife. “SnapMyLife’s premium demographic, high quality content and location-based services set us apart and offer advertisers a unique opportunity to reach older and more affluent consumers. The additional commitment from current investors will enable us to expand our global footprint and add new services in the future.”

SnapMyLife was launched in April, 2008 and has quickly grown to more than 1.5 million unique visitors per month and over 500,000 registered users. Mobile phone users from every country in the world use SnapMyLife to share pictures, make friends, see location-tagged pictures on interactive maps, add favorites, comment and chat.

Originally posted on December 11, 2008 @ 12:04 pm

White Cat Media secures $1.3 million in funding

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White Cat Media Inc. an online media company that publishes editorial websites about shopping for busy, professional women has raised $1.3 million in Series A funding. The capital will be used to support site development, marketing, and new property launches. Vancouver-based Greenscape Capital Group is the sole participant in the round. Greenscape has invested in a variety of eco-luxury companies; White Cat Media is a key investment for their long-term Internet strategy.

Based in New York City, White Cat Media began operations in 2004 with the launch of fashion and beauty blog SheFinds.com. The company introduced a second property, MomFinds.com, in 2006. Both properties have developed loyal audiences by offering the best products the Web has to offer through a human based system of curation coupled with a unique editorial voice. Updated content is continuously delivered to users via daily blogs and biweekly e-mail newsletters.

White Cat Media plans to build a network of sites with accompanying newsletters in high-value shopping verticals based on the original SheFinds.com model. The company owns an extensive collection of domains for future launch including BrideFinds.com and MaternityFinds.com. Ultimately, this network will offer advertisers an integrated marketing solution which will aggregate a motivated consumer base. White Cat Media has devised a capital efficient, highly scalable model that utilizes multiple revenue streams including advertising, affiliate commission, and content syndication.

Founder and CEO, Michelle Madhok, will continue to lead the company. Madhok has played key roles at CBS.com and most recently served as group director of online content at AOL before starting White Cat Media.

Originally posted on December 5, 2008 @ 5:23 pm

KickApps raises $14 million in Series C funding for expansion

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KickApps has closed its Series C funding of $14 million to accelerate company expansion into new markets and continued product innovation. The round was led by North Atlantic Capital, with participation from existing investors Softbank, Spark Capital, Prism Ventures and Jarl Mohn, former CEO of Liberty Digital, Inc.

The financing follows the company’s rapid growth and adoption of its Platform by web publishers and brands worldwide over the last eighteen months. During this time, digital strategists, developers and designers turned to KickApps to integrate social features, such as social networks, media sharing, commenting, rating, blogs, widgets, online video and message boards, throughout their websites.

KickApps currently powers social and media experiences on over 48,000 websites in virtually every industry, including media, entertainment, sports, magazine publishing, travel, live events, radio, television, online retail, food, healthcare, fitness, education, non-profits and B2B online communities. This was also fueled by the company’s international expansion, through a growing market presence in Europe, South America and Asia, representing approximately 35 percent of its customer base.

Originally posted on November 25, 2008 @ 8:08 pm

PlaySpan secures $16.8 million in Series B funding; To expand in Europe and Asia

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PlaySpan, Inc. has raised $16.8 million in Series B investment from Easton Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, STIC and other undisclosed investors. This new capital brings the company’s total funding to $24 million. The new funding will be used to expand into Europe and Asia and to grow PlaySpan’s global publisher and user-base.

“Online games publishers and social media application developers are looking for new sources of revenue beyond traditional advertising and subscriptions. We are enabling a new business model in the form of micro-transactions for users that prefer the pay-as-you-go model,” said Karl Mehta, Founder and CEO of PlaySpan. “It is a testament to our market-leading position, demonstrated growth, and the long-term potential of virtual goods and micro-transactions that we have raised a significant round in spite of the current economic climate.”

The pay-as-you-go model has gained rapid adoption and is poised for tremendous future growth because it gives consumers more control over their entertainment experience and offers publishers expanded revenue opportunities. PlaySpan offers publishers and developers a complete out-of-the-box platform for managing secure, efficient micro-transactions, virtual goods sales, global alternative payments and peer-to-peer trading. PlaySpan’s platform enables any developer to monetize any content at any price for any user in any country, said Mehta.

Originally posted on November 25, 2008 @ 8:00 am