Thursday, April 17, 2008

Collective Intellect , the leading social media analytics company helping businesses track, understand and use social media got new funding of $6.6 m

About Company:
Collective Intellect is a social media analytics company that helps businesses track, understand, and use social media. By utilizing artificial intelligence to sift through online media in real time, Collective Intellect accurately identifies social media participants and communities with knowledge and influence, filters and ranks information capabilities delivering the best content on any topic, and provides key conversation analysis critical in developing and measuring the success rates of sales and marketing programs.

How Much They Got From VCs:
Collective Intellect , the leading social media analytics company helping businesses track, understand and use social media, today closed its second round of institutional funding by raising $6.6 million from venture capital firms led by Grotech Capital Group and including existing investors Appian Ventures and Croghan Investments and new investor Crawley Hatfield Capital, LP.



Proceeds from the investment will be used to dramatically expand Collective Intellect's marketing and sales initiatives, leading to expanded distribution of its monitoring services and analytics-based content, as well as broader application of the company's insights in social media campaigns. This round of funding follows the $2.6 million infusion that Collective Intellect received in February 2006 which was led by Appian Ventures and included other accredited investors in Colorado and New York.

More at:www.collectiveintellect.com

TimeBank is a national charity inspiring and connecting a new generation of people to volunteer in their communities

What Company Is Offering:

TimeBank is a national charity inspiring and connecting a new generation of people to volunteer in their communities, and enabling charitable organisations and businesses to develop innovative and effective volunteer recruitment programmes.TimeBank is transforming the way that individuals, organisations and businesses give back to their communities and contribute to a better world.

How It Works:

TimeBank expertly matches the passions, interests and skills of individuals with opportunities that suit their lifestyles.TimeBank supports voluntary organisations by creating and delivering innovative volunteer recruitment campaigns.TimeBank knows how to harness the power of brands in order to inspire people to give of their time, and they do this with businesses throughout the UK.
TimeBank has in-house technological expertise to build every aspect of an online recruitment campaign, from websites to viral games to online databases. Their award winning website is proof of our ability to harness the power of the web for the benefit of volunteering. They combine high quality web design with cutting edge technology to deliver creative, cost effective online solutions for recruitment as well as ongoing customer care.

More at:http://www.timebank.org.uk/

Rated People is an exciting new business site designed to help you choose recommended tradesmen in your area

What Company Is Offering:
Rated People have a massive network of carefully selected tradespeople who get 'rated' by their customers on every single job they complete.
By sharing their experiences they help each other and everyone wins: their customers choose from the best in their area - and the best tradespeople grow stronger, more successful businesses.

How It Works:
Rated People is like word of mouth, only bigger and better. Bigger because you get instant access to a huge local network of rated tradespeople. Better because you know your tradesperson will take extra care that you are happy with the job - every positive rating helps them grow their business. You'll get competitive quotes from good local tradespeople who are ready to give you a better quality of service.


1. Describe your job. Let them know where you are, what you'd like to get done and when you'd like to start.
2. Get quotes. Tell them how many quotes you'd like and they'll put you in touch with up to three local tradespeople, have the right skills and would like to quote.
3. Choose a tradesperson. They put you in direct contact so you can discuss the job further and arrange visits. Then choose a tradesperson if you'd like to proceed.
4. Rate them! Let everyone know how you rate your tradesperson.

More at:http://www.ratedpeople.com/

Mindsite offers medical-grade resources to help patients overcome the confusion surrounding mental health treatment

What Company Is Offering:
Mindsite offers medical-grade resources to help patients overcome the confusion surrounding mental health treatment. Start by taking the pre-evaluation (it takes less than 10 minutes), and we'll give you personalized, relevant information for your specific mental health needs.

How It Works:
Mindsite is a medical informatics solution designed to address the problems faced by patients searching for information on mental health.

Mindsite is designed to drive objective self awareness about mental health and deliver personalized, actionable information regarding best practices for treatment approaches. With Mindsite, people will be empowered to make more educated and informed decisions about their mind.


Who Is Backing Them:
Founder and CEO. Mr. Eraker is the founder and former CEO of Redfin, an online residential real estate brokerage backed by Madrona, Vulcan Capital, BEV Capital, and Draper Fischer Jurveston. Prior to founding Redfin, Mr. Eraker worked for Coolearth Software, a supply chain management software developer focused on process manufacturers. He also worked at Elixis, a developer of Web-based medical records eventually acquired by GE Medical Systems. Mr. Eraker holds a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Washington. In his spare time, Mr. Eraker serves on the Board of Directors for the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra.

More at:http://www.mindsite.com/

PluggedIn.com is a place to get the hottest music videos, photos, blogs, news, recommendations and more, from artists that matter most to you

What Company Is Offering:
PluggedIn.com is a place to get the hottest music videos, photos, blogs, news, recommendations and more, from artists that matter most to you - in one place. You can:Save the stuff you like, create playlists and share them.Promote your taste in music and meet other music fans.Get recommendations based on the music you like.

How It Works:
Watch stunning, high-quality music videos from your favorite artists. Their innovative video player delivers smooth, uninterrupted, full-screen video over the Internet. Search for an artist, save your favorites, create a playlist and enjoy. It's like having your very own music video channel -- when you want, how you want.
Search for your favorite artist and we'll dynamically assemble the best music content from the web. From HD videos to photos, blog posts to wikipedia entries, biographies to tour dates, CDs to merchandise; we've profiled over one million artists. View and save your favorites, or navigate to recommended artists to keep the session flowing.

Save the stuff you like and share it with the community. We'll make recommendations of other artists and videos you might like, and connect you to fans with similar music tastes. If you like what you see, follow the fans and get instant updates on what they are listening to, which artists they like, who they are searching for and more.

More at:http://www.pluggedin.com/

Macroaxis Wealth Management Tools

What Company Is Offering:
Macroaxis Corporation specializes in providing software solutions for the financial services sector, facilitating rapid distribution of financial analytics to larger audiences. Unique in the industry, Macroaxis Corporation's financial engineering platform delivers measurable value in the form of improved return on clients' intellectual property, productivity and managed assets for financial institutions.

They are dedicated to bringing investors a practical portfolio analysis and optimization toolset that no other company can offer. It is their goal to provide investors and institutions with the ability to properly define, analyze and present optimal portfolios that will lead to increases in return on managed assets, technology, productivity, and intellectual property.

How It Works:

Macroaxis Wealth Management Toolset is a easy to use set of modules that will allow you to make this allocation by optimizing the trade-off between your risk and return constrains. Using their Portfolio Optimizer or Efficient Frontier as well as available market browsers you can quickly optimize your portfolio against you personal risk and return preference.

Using the Portfolio Optimization Pitchlet, you can evaluate the One-Day Value At Risk of the optimal portfolio along with total risk, expected return, Sharpe ratio and Treynor ratio. The model picks the optimal portfolio from the efficient frontier given your specified level of risk, and a set of constraints on weight and return. The resulting portfolio is then compared to your existing portfolio. As a rational investor, your main objective is to outperform your existing portfolio in all 5 categories. For each category in which you outperform your existing portfolio, you will get one star. The best optimization is achieved when, after several iterations, you get all five.

More at:http://www.macroaxis.com/

social|median is a social news service that connects people with personalized news and information

About Company:

social|median is a social news service that connects people with personalized news and information. It’s a bookmarking tool, similar to Twine, that aggregates information around various News Groups that cover any topic under the sun. When you first start out, you can easily search for News Groups to join up with, or create one of your own. To make things easier, as with all good social bookmarking tools, social(median has a browser plugin for easy clipping as you surf the web.

The site is currently in a private invite-only alpha.
There are now 920 alpha users.


More at:http://www.socialmedian.com/

Central Desktop, the Complete Business Collaboration platform for business teams got $7M

What Company Is Offering:
Central Desktop delivers a Complete Business Collaboration platform for the mid-market enabling business teams to connect, share, collaborate and manage business both internally and externally on customizable web workspaces. Its solution is delivered as a pure-play web-based platform (SaaS) that combines the most robust collaboration tools available with consumer-level service and afford-ability. Central Desktop enables teams of all sizes to work virtually and seamlessly without the need for IT resources, leveling the playing field for SMBs wishing to do business with the Fortune 5000 through technology that is as simple as launching a browser.

How Much They Got From VCs:
Central Desktop, the Complete Business Collaboration platform for business teams, t announced a $7M investment from OpenView Venture Partners. The funding is the company’s first round of institutional investment and will be used to further accelerate Central Desktop's R&D, marketing and sales efforts into the under-served SMB market that requires robust business tools with ease of use at affordable prices. The company now serves over 125,000 users and business teams as its approach to Business Collaboration continues rapid adoption in the SMB market. In related news, Central Desktop was named a finalist in both the 2008 Red Herring 100 and SoftwareCEO's Most Innovative General Business Software Awards.

More at:http://www.centraldesktop.com/

Rosum is the first and only company to use unmodified broadcast TV signals to power location and timing solutions has raised $15 million in new fund

What Company Is Offering:

Rosum is the first and only company to use unmodified broadcast TV signals to power location and timing solutions. Rosum is also the first to combine TV and GPS signals for truly robust hybrid positioning in all environments. Partners include Intel Corporation , 2Wire Inc., Trimble , and the Boeing Company . Rosum's founding team includes the original architects of the GPS constellation.

How Much They Got From VCs:

Rosum Corporation announced that it has raised $15 million in new financing. Existing investors Charles River Ventures, Allegis Capital, Steamboat Ventures and KTB Ventures, and new investor TruePosition, Inc., a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, participated in this round of financing.



Skip Speaks, Rosum CEO, commented, "In the past seven months, we have secured partnerships with Intel Corporation and 2Wire Inc. This new financing will enable us to accelerate our expansion into the mobile TV and femtocell markets and to capture emerging global opportunities for our solution. We are grateful for the ongoing support from our current investors and we are excited to add TruePosition, a market leader in the field of location technology, as a strategic investor."



Stephen Stuut, TruePosition CEO, added, "Rosum's TV-positioning solution is well-aligned with our vision of delivering always-available location-based services, indoors and out, with the best technology available. We are pleased to join the Rosum Board of Directors."

Rosum is the first and only company to harness the broadcast TV infrastructure to deliver location and timing solutions where GPS is most challenged indoors and in urban canyons.

The TV infrastructure is robust, distributed, and highly correlated with population centers, cellular service and broadband penetration.

More at:http://www.rosum.com/

WaveMaker, a provider of open source visual tools for Web application development got funding

What Company Is Offering:
WaveMaker Software, Inc. provides an easy-to-use, open source Web application development platform for aspiring Web developers. WaveMaker's Visual Ajax Studio and Rapid Deployment Framework are Web Fast and CIO SafeTM, enabling developers to quickly create and deploy Web applications that adhere to the CIO's architecture, security and data policies. WaveMaker Software is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco, California, and is funded by Allegis Capital, Hummer-Winblad and Worldview Technology Partners.

How Much They Got From VCs:

WaveMaker, a provider of open source visual tools for Web application development, today announced the appointment of Roger Sippl to the Board of Directors. With over 30 years of experience in building and managing enterprise software companies, Sippl will help guide WaveMaker as it continues to expand its Ajax open source Web application development platform. The company also closed $4.5 million in funding this month which will help fuel the continued growth of the company's developer community.



"WaveMaker makes it easy to assemble rich Internet applications from databases and Web services," said Chris Keene, CEO of WaveMaker. "With Roger Sippl, we get a world class entrepreneur with expertise on 4GLs, databases and Web services. Roger's business counsel and financial backing will be invaluable to WaveMaker as we move forward in our vision to be the PowerBuilder for Web 2.0 development."

More at: http://wavemaker.com

SignalDemand, the leader in on-demand price and margin optimization software has received a $20 million

What Company Is Offering:
SignalDemand provides manufacturers with on-demand software and services to achieve maximum profit margins in the face of volatile markets and increasingly complex demand decisions. Using patented, comprehensive mathematical models to process thousands of variables, SignalDemand's technology allows customers to adjust supply and pricing on a continual basis. By recommending best price, supply utilization and product mix in moments, SignalDemand enables better day-to-day decision-making. Companies such as Cargill, Farmland Foods, Hormel, National Frozen Foods, Rich Products, Seaboard Foods and Ventura Foods rely on SignalDemand for immediate and ongoing improvement of financial performance.

How Much They Got From VCs:

SignalDemand, the leader in on-demand price and margin optimization software, announced that it has received a $20 million investment from a syndicate of highly regarded venture firms led by a new investor, InterWest Partners. Existing investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, General Catalyst and Catamount Ventures also participated. SignalDemand plans to use the funds to spearhead its expansion into new vertical and geographic markets and further enhance its award-winning price and margin optimization offering.

SignalDemand is the world's only provider of price and margin optimization software for manufacturers delivered through a SaaS (Software as a Service) deployment model. Using patent-pending econometric modeling and sophisticated pricing algorithms, SignalDemand helps large-scale manufacturers understand how to optimize their pricing, supply utilization and product mix. SignalDemand customers report significant margin and profit gains from the company's acclaimed software.

About VCs:
InterWest Partners (www.interwest.com), founded in 1979, is a leading diversified venture capital firm focused on building long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. Currently investing its ninth fund, IW IX, a $600 million fund, InterWest has raised more than $2 billion of capital since inception. InterWest has 17 investing partners in Menlo Park, CA and Dallas, TX, who bring together deep domain knowledge in life sciences and information technology.

More at: www.signaldemand.com

Adsdaq is an advertising exchange operated by ContextWeb

What Company Is Offering:
Adsdaq is an advertising exchange operated by ContextWeb. It attracts inventory from various publishers, mostly non-branded and part of the "long-tail". ADSDAQ's key features include a wide reach- reportedly 48% of the US population according to ComScore. Also, ADSDAQ offers a level of transparency and control, especially with the AskPrice feature on its flagship selling desk, that allows publishers to set a minimum price for which to sell ads on the ADSDAQ exchange.

How It Works:

Go to http://adsdaq.com/login and enter your username and password.
ADSDAQ serves primarly graphical ads. Sometimes ADSDAQ will also serve rich media and expandable ads. There are no text ads served by ADSDAQ currently.

Their patent-pending technology allows them to optimize creative and serve the most relevant advertisement to your targeted audience in less than 20 milliseconds. More specifically, they provide advertisers with the opportunity to only display their advertisements on content that is most relevant to the product they are selling. With ADSDAQ, ads are placed on the most contextually relevant pages. When buying direct from sites or networks, advertisers do not have the ability to control exactly where their ads are being served, thus allowing for spillage and waste.

More at:http://exchange.contextweb.com/

tagthe.net is a webservice intended to provide you with tags for your texts

What Company Is Offering:

tagthe.net is a webservice intended to provide you with tags for your texts. You can use it in your applications, in other webservices or just play around with it.

How It Works:

It uses the information that is present in the text, it analyses the content and tries to find out words that could be useful as tags. Currently it works with english, german, french and spanish texts. You could integrate it in your own applications, everywhere from an Email Client to a Blogging Service. Everything could use a little tag or two.

For the moment there is no limit, no need to register and no API key or whatsoever. Just use it.

More at:http://www.tagthe.net/

Keypi is the first collaborative analysis tool for the tendencies of the web

What Company Is Offering:
Keypi is the first collaborative analysis tool for the tendencies of the web. In a simple way, Keypi provides in real-time the last tendencies and activities of the web: Browsers, Operating Systems, Search Engines, Mobile Supports, Robots …Data that we provide by processing the audit of hundreds of sites.


How It Works:

These figures are refined and specified as each one participates and influences the tendencies with their site and through our Widget Flash (Beta currently available). Our data show the tendencies over the two last past weeks and make available every week the different classifications and tendencies of the web, on our site and our RSS feeds.
Having, in real-time, the most realistic possible data: That is their goal.

More at:http://www.keypi.com/