Venture Capital Update

San Diego, California - SweetLabs, a developer of niche desktop applications for richer user experience has raised $13 m of series C funding from Intel Capital and with the participation of Google Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners.

The funding will be used with its fresh product called Pokki which lets programmers develop create and share apps for desktop using the standard web languages like CSS, HTML 5 and Javascript. Aside from Pokki, SweetLabs also released the advertising network called OpenCandy.

Currently, the company has $21.5 million of venture capital funding.

San Francisco, California - Zimride, a new spin on ridesharing which uses social networks to enable real connections has raised $1.2 M of series A funding from Floodgate Fund, K9 Ventures and Keith Rabois.

Zimride functions by coordinating carpools by getting them in-touch with each other like those who wants to join an extra seat and those with extra seats in their car.

Zimride currently has 120 networks across the same University or businesses and plans to expand it with the current funding. The funding will also be used for product improvement and for the development of a mobile app version.

New York, New York - Dashlane, a consumer based internet application which aims to expedite online transactions has raised $5 million of series A funding from Rho Ventures and FirstMark Capital.

The funding will be used in more product development and to support its plan in venturing the mobile industry. The funding will also be used for hiring new employees.

Santa Monica, California - Get.com, a a community web site and product discovery platform that helps people make faster and smarter purchasing decisions has raised $1 million of seed funding from unnamed angel investors.

Get.com launching of its new product recommendation services through question and answer from other consumers has prompted the launching. Get.com was developed by former Stickam CTO and CEO Jake Gold and Steven Fruchter.

The new company announced that it plans to campaign for a series A funding next month.

New York, New York - Gojee, a custom curated recipe website personalized to user preferences and user-specific ingredients has raised $1.2 M of seed funding from Kapor Capital.

As part of the venture capital deal, Gojee has added President and Co-Founder of Ustream Brad Hunstable is joining Gojee as an advisor.

Gojee has approximately 50,000 recipes and has doubled its writers or food contributors from 80 to 160. in just a couple of months of operations. Gojee said that they focuses on quality recipes rather than the volume of recipes being uploaded a month.

Gojee's members came from 199 countries around the world and has 25,000 members registered and growing.

Palo Alto, California - Red Robot Labs, a mobile gaming founded by a team of industry veterans who are passionate about creating innovative, highly polished mobile-social games has raised $8.5 M of series A funding from Benchmark Capital, Shasta Ventures and angel investors Rick Thompson and Chamath Palihaptiya.

The funding will be used for the development of other mobile games and this year the company is planning to release 3 mobile game titles. The company just released a hit game for android called Life is Crime where there is an overwhelming response from critics and players. An iPhone version will be released soon.

Richardson, Texas - FireHost, a hosting company that delivers secure web hosting solutions to Ecommerce, SaaS, healthcare IT and security companies around the world has raised $10 million of series B funding from the private equity firm The Stephens Inc.

The new funding will be used to accelerate the company's growth and to expand its services to the European market.

Palo Alto, California - Platfora, a software company developing revolutionary BI and analytics platform that democratizes and simplifies use of big data and Hadoop has raised $5.7 million of series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz.

The funding was due to Platfora's launching of their Hadoop-based products and Platfora believed that Hadoop is the newest option when it comes to Data management.

Andreessen Horowitz also took part of a $25 million funding last year to Factual, another database company focusing on innovative solutions.

San Francisco, California - Fingerprint, first kids’ learning and entertainment platform has raised $1.4 million of seed funding from K2 Media Labs, THQ, Reed Elsevier Ventures and Suffolk University Venture Firm.

The funding will be used to finance its flagship products which combines mobile and web learning and game applications for kids. The company will also be launching line up of learning software for kids this October.

El Segundo, California - SOS Online Backup, one of the leading providers and pioneers of Cloud Computing technology in the field of data protection and storage has raised $3 million of series A roundn from Splashpond Investors.

The new capital will be used for new cloud-based services and products. SOS Online Backup currently boasts more than 500,000 subscribers to its services.