VentureBeat

1. Yandex, Russian search engine, grows quickly
2. Opus launches hedge fund in New York
3. Matrix goes to China
4. Dogster takes $400,000 in financing
5. Semantic search engine Powerset raises $2M
6. Pubmatic, draw ads from all networks
7. Boobik, the Twitter clone, but for sex
8. Branson taking global warming to space
9. Oversee.net gets $150M to monetize domains
10. Google’s Palimpsest hosts terabytes of raw data

Yandex, Russian search engine, grows quickly — Yandex did more than a million billion searches last month, which is comparable to AOL and Ask. It is was the ninth largest search property worldwide, according to comScore. Meanwhile, Yandex revenue has doubled for the past five years, and is on target for $140 million in 2007.

PubMatic, the site that helps publishers draw ads from the highest paying networks, expands — Before, it drew ads from a handful of networks. Today, it said it can draw ads from any ad network. We haven’t tested its claim, but that’s quite a move.

Branson might save us from global warming, by taking the warming to space — There’s a great line by Branson in the stories (here and here) covering the vision of the Virgin Galactic project: One day we might be able to use space for energy production. While I believe aviation has to get more carbon efficient, seemingly benign industries like IT have outpaced aviation in carbon output. [One promise of a commercial space industry is] the ability to launch low-earth satellites that could literally take some of the heat out of the planet, by serving as a repository for information technology.

Boobik, the Twitter clone, but for sex — The squeamish shouldn’t click to this site; there’s a large number of people exhibiting themselves in images.. (Don’t go there if you dont’ like explicit images.)

Oversee.net gets $150 million to monetize domains — The Los Angeles company got the money from Oak Hill Capital Partners, a Silicon Valley private equity firm to help it monetize domains for domain owners.

Google’s Palimpsest project to host terabytes of data — Google is accepting the data sets and making them free. Wired has some details.

Opus launches hedge fund in New York — If you’re a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and seeing all the profits being made by the hedge fund guys, its tough to move into hedge fund or other money management areas because your limited partners preclude you from doing so. So Opus Capital, of Menlo Park, has done it a different way. It has quietly launched a fund in New York, but says it hasn’t devoted any of its resources from its current fund. The firm didn’t want to talk about it, but when pressed, a spokeswoman explained that Opus Select, as the New York operation is called, was “started by two industry veterans whom we have known for many years, have set up their own operations and are making use of our financial and back office infrastructure.” Opus, you’ll remember, has a history of itchy feet. It was the group that split off from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Matrix goes to China — Another venture capital firm making moves is Matrix, which like other successful firms Sequoia and Kleiner before it, is finally moving to China. It is raising a $250 million for a first China fund, according to a regulatory filing.

Dogster takes $400,000 in financing — Dogster, the social network for dogs and cats, has raised $400,000 in bridge financing. The company has long been around break-even, and with the economy teetering, what better time to take a little cash to keep you out of the dog house.

Semantic search engine Powerset raises $2 million — The bridge loan is designed to tide it over until it officially launches its site in March. The company has been testing searches using the structured online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and Powerset will apparently launch with that limited focus. We’ve covered the company before. Investors were disclosed.

United Dogs & Cats, a company that manages the social networking websites for pet owners, Uniteddogs.com and Unitedcats.com, has raised an undisclosed round of funding from Ambient Sound Investments.

The Estonian company is the latest European clone of a U.S. Internet company. It competes against Dogster, the San Francisco company that launched in 2004 and runs popular sites Dogster, Catster and other sites.

Dogster has been growing steadily, having last year raised $1 million from angel investor Jeff Clavier and others. That company has essentially been profitable, but has poured resources into growth, and so is really only breaking even, according to Dogster chief executive Ted Rheingold.

Other similar sites include Fuzzster, Backwash Pets, PawSpot and PetsinCommon.

Of course, a multitude of venture-backed pet sites was the hallmark of the last bubble. Those sites, including Pets.com, were the first to crash when advertising dried up. However, it has become a cliche to cry out “bubble!” anytime we something similar to last time. Fact is, things are much saner this time around. Both Dogster and UnitedDogs appear to be raising prudent amounts of money.

Ambient has invested small amounts of cash into 13 early-stage companies, most in Eastern Europe, but some in Asia and the U.S. Its investments include Blip.TV.

Ambient, an Estonian firm run by four early engineers of Skype, will own a 15 percent stake of the company after the investment.

Like at Dogster, United Dogs & Cats lets you create a homepage for your pet, upload and comment on photos and videos, keep pet blogs and share stories with other pet owners.

UDC launched in March in Estonia, and then released an English version in May. In addition, UDC also has released new versions in German, French, Dutch and Latvian. UDC said it will add new languages to its portfolio. Co-founder Ragnar Sass said he is adding a new language to the company’s websites practically every week. This is one area where rival Dogster has been slow to move.

On name alone, however, Dogster wins this battle. It is so much more memorable than UnitedDogs.