Venture Capital Update

TheraSim reduces the variation in clinical care delivery and drug development through better tools to measure and improve clinician skills and knowledge. They provide patient case simulation for the web.

Their own statement is that they ".. move the medical learning experience closer to what physicians actually do - treat patients"

Aggregate Knowledge is a provider of real-time personalization and audience-centric display optimization solutions. This enables agencies and advertisers to gain full control over their advertising campaigns.

BVI Networks’ RetailNEXT Product Suite is a complete solution that enables retailers and manufacturers to use video, transaction data from business systems, and class video analytics algorithms to address some of their highest priority objectives in terms of optimizing store operations, gaining valuable marketing & sales data and improving security.

Quantcast received a sizeable investment. While you may be familiar with Alexa and Comscore, others like Quantcast and Compete have been around but are relatively new in comparison. I do not mean to compare them as they all provide different information in their own way, utilizing their own measurement procedures.

Quantcast not only estimates website traffic but also has exact numbers on sites that place Quantcast code on them. Much like you would place google analytics code to view your own site statistics, you can add Quantcast code. Do not worry as you can choose what information is made public and what is private for only you to view.

Quantcast has recently added more information for marketers and allows others to find your site, your audience, and contact you for advertising. They state that 9 out of 10 media companies use them.

WhiskeyMedia publishes three sites: AnimeVice, ComicVine and GiantBomb. They raised $2.5 MM from family and friends (per their blog entry here).

They mention the money raised is from Family and Friends, they must have some really nice friends.

PowerReviews Receives $5,000,000 of their current round, they are seeking more, we read online.

SCVNGR is a location based mobile gaming infrastructure company. Anyone, including you, can develop, deploy and manage location based mobile games that can be played from any mobile phone on any carrier.

WePay allows groups, being as large or as small as you would like, to create payment groups. Think a baseball team, or school class, that needs parents to pay dues or other expenses. The parents become members of the group and pay that group. Now individuals, such as a coach or other parents, do not need to physically collect cash or checks. That is a simplification of what they offer but you get the idea.

They provide electronic billing and collection through echecks, credit cards, and paper checks, and enable transparent spending through WePay debit cards, online bill pay, and electronic transfers.

Kakai is a stealth-mode start-up developing an innovative Linux-based, portable consumer electronics product (details available through non-disclosure agreement).

YouKu is a Chinese video sharing site. According to a press release they have raised a total of $110 Million. This round was led by Chengwei Ventures, Brookside (Bain) Capital, Maverick Capital, and Sutter Hill Ventures.

The site launched in December 2006 and by June 2008 their daily stats were more than 150 million daily video views and monthly stats of total user time exceeding 30 billion minutes per month.

Their revenue model is advertising.