LA-based Viddy steals $6M from Silicon Valley VCs for social video

Social video startup Viddy has raised its first round of institutional funding — a healthy $6 million from Silicon Valley venture firms.

Battery Ventures led the round, which also saw participation from Qualcomm. Outside the Valley, New York’s Greycroft Ventures also joined in the financing.

Viddy, which lets users share 15-second video clips, will use the funding to bring its app to Android tablets and smartphones as well as to the iPad. BlackBerry and Windows … Continue Reading

Pulse raises $9M for its slick news reader

Pulse, which created the popular Pulse news reading app, has raised $9 million in its first round of institutional venture funding.

The app aggregates news stories from RSS feeds and social networks and presents them in a design that was apparently impressive enough that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs showed it off on-stage last year. It started out as an iPad application created by two graduate students for a class at Stanford Institute for Design, … Continue Reading