Venture Capital Update

London, UK - Smarkets, a prediction market website that makes punting on your favourite events simple and social has raised $2.3 million of seed funding from T-Venture and Passion Capital.

As part of the funding deal, Randeep Wilkhu, Senior Investment Manager at T-Venture, and Robert Dighero, Angel Investor and Partner at Passion Capital will be joining the board of Smarkets.

San Francisco, California - Fortumo, a developer-friendly mobile payments provider has raised $10 million of funding from Intel Capital and Greycroft Partners.

“The opportunity in the mobile payments segment is enormous, and we believe that Fortumo is well positioned to capitalize on the trend of operator based billing, says Marcin Hejka, Managing Director of Intel Capital Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. “The Fortumo team is a great example for the strong talent in the Central and Eastern European region able to build innovative and globally successful solutions. ”

Aside from the new funding, Fortumo is also partnering with Vodafone Group for direct operator billing in 13 countries and with China Mobile.

London, UK - Blottr, a people powered news service that enables anyone to capture, report and collaborate on news as it happens around them, from mobile to web instantly has raised $612 K of seed funding from Kima Ventures Fund and Playfair Capital.

The new funds will be used for hiring new employees in its two offices: London and New York.

San Francisco, California - BrightBytes, the first SaaS-based data analytics platform that measures and links technology use in education to learning outcomes has raised $750 K of seed funding from Learn Capital Venture Partners and NewSchools Venture Fund with some unnamed investors.

The new funding will be used in accelerating the growth of the start-up.

Washington, D.C. Sokikom, an online program that uses positive reinforcement, social learning, and personalization to help solve these problems has raised $2 million of seed funding from Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and top corporate and angel investors including ntel Chairman and CEO Dr. Craig Barrett and Zynga co-founder Steve Schoettler, and some unnamed investors.

“You can have content that is personalized at the perfect level for students,” Sokikom co-founder Snehal Patel says, “but if they aren’t motivated, they aren’t going to care and they’re not going to learn.”

The new funding will be used in the development of the start=ups features..

London, UK - Graduway, a professional and tailored alumni platform that combines the trust and exclusiveness of a school brand whilst being layered and integrated with existing social networks has raised $1.1 M of seed funding from BTG Pactual and Gigi Levy and RSL Venture Partners.

“Time and time again we’ve found that schools have literally lost contact with the majority of their alumni, which, ironically, is their most valuable asset,” Graduway founder Daniel Cohen said. “If you look at the user statistics for their platforms, typically, all you’ll hear is the sound of deafening silence — of a dead network.”

Graduway aims to provide schools an exclusive social networking platform that will continue the network of alumni after graduation.

Atlanta, Georgia - AirWatch, a leading provider of enterprise-wide Mobile Device and WLAN Management solutions has raised $200 million of series A funding from Insight Venture Partners.

The new round of funds will be used in strategic acquisitions, accelerate global growth and drive innovation and adoption of AirWatch’s content collaboration solution, Secure Content Locker™.

“With an enhanced balance sheet and greater financial strength providing much more stability than our competition, this investment is a significant step to reinforce our solutions during a critical market pivot,” said John Marshall, president and CEO, AirWatch.

San Jose, California - Skyera, an affordable flash memory to enterprise solid-state storage systems has raised $51 million of series b funding from Dell Ventures.

“We view the investment in Skyera as a validation of the disruptiveness of the technology we are bringing to enterprise organizations seeking to take advantage of both the technical and cost benefits of the latest generation of flash,” said Dr. Radoslav Danilak, Founder and CEO of Skyera. “Moreover, Dell and the investment syndicate bring deep knowledge of the storage sector that will be beneficial to Skyera as we take our next steps.”

The new funding will be used to accelerate the integration of the latest-generation flash technology and drive broader adoption of Skyera’s enterprise solid-state storage solutions.

Moscow, Russia - uBank, a mobile payment service that currently targets Russia and the wider CIS region has raised $8 million of series A funding from Runa Capital.

The new investment will be used to accelerate the product development, venturing into the global market and for new marketing strategies.

San Francisco, California - Pinterest, a social networking site with a visually-pleasing “virtual pinboard” interface has raised a new round of funding amounting to $200 million led by Valiant Capital and backed by existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital.

Pinterest will use the new fund to develop new features and also for strategic acquisitions of new employees and technology.

Pinterest has a valuation worth of $2.5 billion now after the new funding.