Thursday, November 22, 2007

Photo-sharing site Phanfare Got $2.5 million In VCs Funding

What Company Says:
Photo-sharing site is downloadable application offers quick upload options and integrates with its web-based service for syncing and easy online-sharing.
They created Phanfare(Photo-sharing site) because they wanted permanent, polished, ad-free online photo and video albums. And they wanted to reduce the time and effort needed to create and share our albums. But mostly they created Phanfare because they wanted to make photo and video sharing fun again!

How Much They Got From VCs:
Photo-sharing site Phanfare has received $2.5 million in additional funding. In this third round, the funding was led by Azure Capital Partners and other undisclosed investors.

Who is backing The company :

Andrew Erlichson (andrew@phanfare.com), Founder, CEO, member of the Board

Prior to Phanfare, Andrew Erlichson was CEO & co-founder of Flashbase, which was acquired by DoubleClick in 2000. At DoubleClick, he was Vice President of Technology for the Research and Development Group. He has worked at Mips Computer Systems, Silicon Graphics and BlackRock Financial Management. Andrew Erlichson received his AB from Dartmouth College and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Mark Heinrich (mark@phanfare.com), Founder, CTO, member of the Board

Mark Heinrich is an Associate Professor and the Associate Director of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida (UCF), and a founder of its Computer Systems Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998 and was a principal designer of the FLASH multiprocessor under his advisor, John Hennessy. Dr. Heinrich also received his MS from Stanford in 1993, and his BSE in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Duke University in 1991. His research interests include parallel computer architecture, high-throughput computing, scalable cache coherence protocols, and active memory and I/O subsystems. Dr. Heinrich was also the co-founder and Chief Architect of Flashbase, Inc. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, an IBM Faculty Award, and is a member of the ACM and a Senior Member of the IEEE.
More at:http://www.phanfare.com/

An Entrepreneur On His Own Beat-- Success Story

Eric Royal Lybeck, a former smoker, once told his friend and 13-year band mate, Henry Rich, 27, that he was going on a smoke break to feed his "oral fixation." Rich thought it was an excellent name for a mint company--and Oral Fixation was born in 2003. While still playing in their band, Rich and Royal, the pair researched mint production and decided to sell high-end mints in fashionable tins to upscale outlets like The Ritz Carlton, W Hotels, specialty food stores and coffeehouses, as well as online at oralfix.com.

Merging their band's touring schedule with their $5 million business's growing needs, Rich and Lybeck, 26, schedule tour dates in the same cities as major trade shows. "We do business in 15 to 20 countries at any given time, so it's really important for me to come and meet with distributors and just communicate the brand message to them," says Rich. Still, it helps to know that when Rich is hobnobbing with distributors overseas, his superb staff of five in Oral Fixation's Hopewell, New Jersey, office is at the helm.
More at:www.OralFix.com
Via-Entrepreneur

Dwarf Entertainment's midgets---Profitable But Unusual Business Idea

What Company is Offering:
Hire Dwarf Entertainment's midgets, dwarfs, little persons, and full sized dancers and strippers to perform their adult entertainment acts at your next special event, whether it is a birthday party, bachelor or bachelorette party or club promotion. Dwarf Entertainment is willing to travel 150 miles by car to entertain your guests. If your event is any further, airplane travel must be arranged. LAST MINUTE BOOKINGS ARE ACCEPTED!
How It Works:

With decades of party palnning and providing midgets, dwarfs and full-size male and female strippers for entertainment, Dwarf Entertainment can provide your special event - whether it be a bachelor or bachelorette party, club opening, birthday party or office gag - a variety of routines, costumes and characters tailored to your specific needs. If you think your event may need that spark to get the party going, then Dwarf Entertainment is your company for BIG entertainment. Our midget and full size dancers and strippers get the party jumping.
More at:http://www.dwarfentertainment.com/

MINIsite--- Create A Website For Your Company

What Company is Offering;
MINIsite Business is a solution where they have made it as easy as possible for you as a customer. Forget about difficult codes and expensive solutions – concentrate on content and how it is presented.
The most important thing for both the website and your companys internet communication is easy access and that your customer finds the information he or she was looking for.
How it Works:
With the MINIsite Business, you can easily create your own website. Choose between different layouts. The choice of design, pictures, and colours are entirely up to you. MINIsite Business has been designed to allow you to quickly upload any pictures you need to complete the company profile. The pictures can be cropped and optimized online.

The design of a website is your direct contact to you customers and allows you to inform them of your products and you company in the right manner. It is therefore very important to get the right design that supports your product. If you need help, you may contact us for an offer. We have many years of experience with visual identity.
More at;http://business.minisite.net/

CafeMom is the largest and fastest growing social networking site for moms

What Company is About:
CafeMom is the largest and fastest growing social networking site for moms. With 99 million pageviews and 2.1 million unique visits in October (up from 23 million PV and 750,000 UV at the end of Q1), CafeMom is quickly becoming a leading destination on the web for mothers.

As the world's original social networkers, moms are connecting on shared interests, passions, challenges, and local geography. Moms have created more than 15,000 groups. Popular groups include pregnancy, raising boys, recipe swap, photo moms, and marriage and relationships. CafeMom features include fully customizable profile pages, friends' networks, journaling, and strong privacy / anonymity controls.
How It Works:
CafeMom is focused on creating a great site for moms that is somewhere they can come to get advice, feel supported, or just relax. CafeMom works closely with its advertising partners to help them participate in a way that is relevant to moms. CafeMom partners are leaders across categories and are sponsoring custom widgets, profile pages, custom groups, and word of mouth campaigns.CafeMom (CMI Marketing, Inc.) closed a round of funding for $5MM in August 2007 from existing investors Highland Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. CafeMom is using these funds to accelerate traffic growth and further grow the team.
More at:http://www.cafemom.com/

TestFreaks---For All Your Product Reviews

What Company Is Offering:
TestFreaks collects all necessary information about your favorite products, such as, expert reviews, user reviews, forum discussions, blog posts and the lowest prices. You can search the information, sort and filter it so it will make things a bit easier. This is a beta version. If you are interested in participating in our private beta starting in the coming months give us your e-mail and you might be one of the fortunate ones.
How It Works:
TestFreaks is about aggregating all information about your favorite products. User reviews, professional reviews, prices, blog posts, forum threads, news, rumors, manufacturers descriptions and specifications, manuals, videos and more. They want you to have the best possible information about the product you are looking for. It should be fun and easy to find the best products for you. TestFreaks isn’t only about finding new products it will also be an owner’s community were you can share your experiences about your products and help others maximize the utility of the products.
More at:http://www.testfreaks.com/

Mzinga--Helps your company use existing communities

What Company is Offering:
Mzinga provides on-demand solutions that leverage the power of workplace and customer communities for growth and innovation.

That’s a lofty statement, isn’t it?

Put quite simply, we believe that companies can use their existing communities of people – their employees, their customers, their partners, and their shareholders – to solve their business needs and provide real value to the business.
How It Works:
They provide fully hosted, Software-as-a-Service solutions that provide you with the following benefits:
Foster informal communication and dialog with your community.
Enable your community members to interact, collaborate, and innovate.
Facilitate knowledge sharing and employee training and development in the form of both formal learning (through our KnowledgePlanet Learning Suite) and social learning (through our Web 2.0 technologies) .
A number of the world’s most successful companies have already recognized the value that Mzinga’s solutions can provide to them – value that comes in the form of improved and accelerated business processes, improved employee performance and productivity, and increased revenues.
More at:http://www.mzinga.com/

Senator On-Line --First Online Political Party

What company is Offering:
Senator On-Line is not aligned to any other political party… it is neither Liberal nor Labor.

Senator On-Line (‘SOL’) is a truly democratic party which will allow everyone on the Australian Electoral roll who has access to the internet to vote on every Bill put to Parliament and have its Senators vote in accordance with a clear majority view.


Senator On-Line promises to let its members vote on every bill that comes before the nation’s parliament. The party’s representative then votes in accordance with the majority. Talk about direct democracy.

How it Works:

Anyone enraged by the power of special interest groups, back-room deal making and partisan bickering will be struck by the compelling alternative Senator On-Line presents. The party has no political agenda or platform, remains independent of lobbying groups and vows to help its members decide how to vote on issues with impartial online information detailing the pros and cons of any particular stance. Some might argue that such an extreme form of direct democracy could easily take on a dark side. What’s to prevent party members from voting against needed taxes, for example? Similarly, could they vote to strip away the rights of minority groups?

An FAQ on the party’s website attempts to answer these questions. To prevent a malevolent majority from taking over the country, Senator On-Line will only field candidates in Australia’s Senate (upper house), whose powers are limited to approving and rejecting bills. Under Australia’s parliamentary system, it’s the lower house, the House of Representatives, that proposes and debates bills.

Why It Could Work:
Senator On-Line and its imitators will likely evolve in unexpected ways. Special interest groups might shift their efforts from lobbying legislators to reaching out directly to grass roots party members, who—for good or ill—may be more susceptible to their message. Candidates and their parties have traditionally provided a check when their rivals make false statements. With a web-based democracy, that role would likely fall more urgently on the press and on watchdog groups.

On the other hand, the gridlock that exists in many of the world’s legislative bodies remains in dire need of new thinking. And as the web continues to grow in importance, political parties are bound to rely on it more and more. No direct business opportunities connected to this concept (for now), but the model should be of interest to anyone tracking the workings of online crowds and communities. And anyone who'd like to start their online party.
More at: www.senatoronline.org.au

BuyMyTronics.com wants to buy your used, new or broken Electronics

What Company Is Offering:
BuyMyTronics.com wants to buy your used, new or broken Electronics today! We offer a fast, simple, and eco-friendly way for you to get money for your iPod, iPhone, Nintendo, Microsoft, Zune, Sony or PSP Game Console. We accept iPod Classic, Touch, Video, Photo, Nano, Mini, 4th to 1st Generation iPods, iPhone, Zune 2 and 1, Wii, DS Lite, Game Cube, Playstation 3, 2 and 1, X-Box, X-Box 360, PSP game consoles. We don't care about the condition of your electronics. They will accept a Bricked iPhone, a Sad Faced Hard Drive iPod, a New PS3, an X-Box with a Disk Read Error or an old Wii. They will pay you top dollar for your unwanted electronic devices – guaranteed! Keep your eWaste out of the landfill and get some quick cash in return.

How It Works:
Click on “Submit Your TRONIC” and tell us about your iPod from the pull-down menus. Once you have entered the necessary information about your TRONIC, you will be given an instant price quote. Click “Accept” to sell us your used, new or broken iPod or iPhone.
Fill in the shipping information sheet with the e-mail address or physical address where you would like your payment sent via Paypal or check. Then ship the TRONIC to us, following the provided Shipping Instructions (they will be emailed to you after you confirm.)

BuyMyTronics pays you for your new, used, or damaged electronics (video game consoles, iPhones, ipods, etc) when you send them in by mail. To receive some cold hard cash for your “tronic”, you’ll need to use the provided pull-down menus to describe the condition of your item. BuyMyTronics will then generate an approximate value of your tronic, much like a Blue Book vehicle price quote. Should you choose to accept their offer, BuyMyTronics will reimburse you via check or PayPal for the amount they quoted you within 24 hours of receiving your item.
More at:http://buymytronics.com/

TeamPages --The Online Tool Assisting Coaches,Team Managers,And League Administrators To Organize Their Teams And Athletes Got VCs Funding

What Company is Offering:
TeamPages , the online tool assisting coaches, team managers, and league administrators to organize their teams and athletes .
How It Works:
TeamPages is pioneering an online athletic community through solving two major pains common in all amateur team sports: team communication and scheduling. TeamPages provides teams and athletes with a central online location to post and share their athletic information, such as: schedules, announcements, contact information, statistics, and photos. TeamPages saves coaches, parents and players time and headaches when it comes to team management and communication. TeamPages is an online social network for parents, coaches, and athletes of sports teams that helps all participants stay in touch with each other and keep up to date with the team's schedule of games and events. TeamPages provides a central online location for teams and athletes to post and share their athletic information such as schedules, announcements, contact information, scores, and photos.

How Much They Got In VCs Funding:

It has completed its Series A round of financing led by Burda Digital Ventures and several local angel investors.

About VCs:

Burda Digital Ventures is the venture capital arm of Hubert Burda Media, one of Germany's largest media companies. Together with local Internet entrepreneur and investor Boris Wertz, Burda Digital Ventures plans to expand its investment activities in the Pacific North West by focusing on Consumer Internet opportunities. Current investments in this region include among others Victoria's AbeBooks Inc. and Vancouver-based Suite101.com.
More at: www.teampages.com

ADrive---For Free Online Backup Data Storage

What Company is Offering:
ADrive operates using industry-leading enterprise level data storage, networking and server technology to safely store and access your files.

ADrive is extremely fault-tolerant, allowing our users to feel safe when using our services. They know you need your data on demand, so they have designed the most highly available infrastructure to ensure your ADrive experience is simple, secure and enjoyable.
How It Works:
ADrive LLC leads the free online data storage community, offering the largest amount of free storage on the Internet. They provide their users with secure solutions for storing, backing up, and accessing files from virtually anywhere, at any time. ADrive serves as an online, centralized vault for all file types including: music, videos, photos, documents, and more.
At ADrive is to provide their users with more free online storage than any of their competitors. They are committed to delivering highly available and secure file storage solutions to the entire ADrive community.
More at:http://www.adrive.com/

Find Events And Venues--IPartee

What Company Is Offering:
IPartee is an event management service that improves how people discover and participate around events. It was founded in early 2007 by Christopher Golda and Michael Montano.

The service is built on a social-network designed to help you and your friends plan outings and organize events. IPartee helps you discover events and venues related to your interests and those of your friends.
How It Works:
You don't need an account to start discovering events and venues in your area.
Groups make event discovery easy — people join groups that match their interests, and use them to follow events, venues and polls related to those interests. If you’re managing a group, you can Share Events, which will post the event on the group page as well as invite all the members to attend (if the event is private). This is what it looks like at first glance.
More at:http://www.ipartee.com/