VentureBeat

There are plenty of banner advertising companies, and plenty that focus on widget ads. Now a startup called MediaForge offers a platform that brings the two together.

With MediaForge’s technology, banner ads become a lot more interactive — when users roll their cursors over the banners, an interactive widget appears that can showcase special deals, purchasing options or various media.

For example, when you mouse over an ad from MediaForge customer Overstock.com, a window appears that lets you browse through the day’s top sellers and specials (see screenshot at left). According to MediaForge, Overstock’s test campaign with the platform led to a 12 percent increase in return on investment.

Interactive advertising through widgets is definitely taking off, but I’m not sure the banner-widget hybrid does much that a widget can’t do on its own. On the other hand, not only can MediaForge help companies create hybrid ads, it can also “socialize” (i.e., add widgets to) existing banners. Companies wanting to expand existing banner ad campaigns, rather than starting from scratch, seem to be the startup’s target audience.

The company raised $1.5 million in 2006. It’s based in Salt Lake City.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products (release)
• Myconostica raises £3.9 for fungal diagnostics (GenomeWeb)
  
• Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs (release)

AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products – Freeport, N.Y.-based AGI Dermatics, a startup concentrated on skincare products, raised $5 million in a new funding round. Investors included Trevi Health Ventures and Spring Mountain Capital.

AGI makes cosmetic ingredients and is working on developing topical pharmaceutical lotions as well. Its leading drug candidate is called T4N5 Liposome Lotion, which AGI says includes a DNA-repair enzyme intended to repair ultraviolet damage to the skin. The company is currently testing the product as a preventive treatment for skin cancer.

Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs — Noxxon, a German biotech aiming to make drugs from nucleic-acid snippets called aptamers, received a grant from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The €1 million ($1.6 million) grant is intended to support Noxxon’s drug-discovery program, which we covered at greater length last May.

Myconostica raises £3.9M for fungal diagostics – Myconostica, a U.K. biotech that spun out of the University of Manchester, raised £3.9 million ($7.7 million) in a third funding round, GenomeWeb reports. Investors included Amphion Innovations, Nexus Medical Partners, and Innoven Partenaires.

The company is working on rapid diagnostic tests for life-threatening fungal infections. Its first product is a test for several types of fungal infection that is nearing approval in Europe, and which Myconostica thinks could receive U.S. approval by the fourth quarter.