Venture Capital Update

Formatta announced they received $3 Million in second round funding. This brings their total to $7 Million. This latest raise was from Edison Venture Fund and Silicon Valley Bank. Formatta is a provider of E-Forms data capture and integration software solutions

At the same time they announced they were obtaining a new CEO, Grant Wagner. Formatta is a provider of E-Forms data capture and integration software solutions.

Formatta software quickly and efficiently extends the reach of applications to all users so organizations have the information they need to operate more efficiently and effectively. The idea is to no just capture the information efficiently but also assure it is provided to the applications that need it.

Yieldex originally won the Amazon AWS startup challenge. Out of nearly 1,000 startups they won.

They provide a service for a websites inventory management. The system is named Dynamic IQ. Dynamic IQ is better described as a tool to forecast and visualize available inventory. The bottom line, after using Dynamic IQ, is that you will uncover your premium inventory. The premium inventory, such as desirable demograhics, can be sold at premium rates instead of allowing it to be sold as remnant inventory.

Founders are from Matchlogic and NetGravity.

Smule is a maker of iPhone applications. Not your traditional applications, as their founder and management team have an impressive list of educational and work experience.

They currently have 5 applications, Zephyr, Ocarina, Sonic Vox, Sonic Boom and Sonic Lighter. One of them is a voice shifter, a musical application, a firecracker, a lighter and more. Amazing.

You have to see them to understand. Their business model is to sell them in the AppStore.
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Twitter allows you to post "tweets" up to 140 characters. The functionality allows you to follow others so you may receive their tweets. You may tweet, reply to others, direct message others which are private, and favorite tweets.

Many applications have been built that utilize the twitter APIs, which are excellent.

Vuzit announced today that the company received funding from a mix of angel investors and economic development organizations, including Robin Hood Ventures, Innovation Philadelphia and Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

The Vizut technology is an online document viewer and SaaS based security application designed to provide a more secure method to share and store documents.

The electronic document distribution platform is to provide enhanced security and analytics. The web services/AJAX software allows users to view documents through an application embedded in their web browser, tracking and restricting access, a technology for distributing and viewing documents.

OneSpot recently received series A funding. They aggregate, filter, and prioritize the best content, curated by you. Essentially their system sifts through all the content now available to find what is most relevant to you and your site. This information is automatically generated for you and you then choose what to ultimately use.

They state this is a Publishing as a Service™ platform. This third party content drives site traffic, audience engagement and SEO performance.

Project management software and industry has been around for quite a while. One of the most interesting twists as a manager is to manage a distributed workforce. By distributed I mean physically distributed all over the world.

Sourth49 Solutions provides their workforce management and data collection software known as NaturalInsight. NaturalInsight is a fully integrated suite of online management tools for scheduling, tracking and reporting of large scale projects performed in many locations. The company’s hosted solution model allows clients to minimize technology investment while improving overall performance and accountability.

In 2008, the numbers of registered workers using NaturalInsight doubled to over 27,000.

Looking to book a hotel? If you want more than a couple pictures of the hotel exterior or a couple room pics you may want to see video of the hotel.

TVtrip is a search engine for hotels that uses unbiased videos filmed by TVtrip representatives to help you make the right hotel choice. They work hard to display videos of all hotel facilities and room categories. You can see the meeting rooms, game rooms, pool areas and more.

They also document on video the surrounding area. You can then find the best prices and complete your booking.

WordStream is a provider of search marketing tools for paid and natural search engine marketing. WordStream has a tool set to simplify the development and optimization of effective search marketing campaigns.

The product named WordStream offers a software application with the following features: search marketing including keyword research, keyword grouping, keyword suggestion, Web analytics, information architecture, and more.

WordStream attempts to assist search marketers with automating many of the repetitive tasks and spend more time focusing on the more profitable tasks.

4INFO has raised $20 million in it's sixth round, this round was made up of equity and debt funding.

They send SMS messages only to those that request it. An individual must request to receive information via SMS before 4INFO will send a message. Their permission based messaging allows them to stay on the good side of the wireless carriers.

4INFO states they have sent over 80 million messages (which includes SMS, WAP and mobile Video) to date and have over 16 million users. The business model is to subsidize their cost of sending a message with advertising, and of course make a profit by charging the advertiser more per message than the cost of sending the message. Note that the sending of an SMS message and the costs involved is entirely different than a banner ad (WAP) shown on a web page within a browser on a mobile device. Two different types of media, two different cost structures, and 4INFO utilizes them both.

The messages themselves have content that was requested by an individual, with the advertising appended. Their CEO stated they have "...strategic distribution partners like GE/NBC’s Peacock Equity Fund and Gannett, Inc. ..."