VentureBeat

Travel sites are a dime a dozen. You can book trips. You can tell your friends about them. But nobody has done a great job of combining the basics of a travel site with tools that make it easy to plan trips and share information with fellow travelers. TravelMuse says it has the answer.

When you visit the Los Altos, Calif.-based company’s site, you can see a breathtaking photo (licensed for free from one of the many photographers on photo-sharing sites such as Flickr). There are also articles from 40 different freelance contributors on travel destinations. But the power of the site is in its combination of user suggestions and collaboration.

One of the most interesting features is the “Find Inspiration” tab. When you click on it, you can use it to figure out where you want to go. With simple sliders, you can set parameters such as the budget per person, duration of trip, season, and class of accommodation. You can enter the distance from home you’d like to travel. Then you can look at a “tag cloud” of activities and then pick which ones are the highest priority for your trip, such as spa visits. It takes just seconds to do.

Then the site suggests an itinerary. You can pull out some of the activities and replace them by dragging and dropping. You can also look up your friends’ trips and see what they did. If you want to do one of the activities they suggested, you drag it into your itinerary. That feature is there because the best advice usually comes from people you trust, said Kevin Fliess, chief executive of TravelMuse.

Once you like your itinerary, you can share it with friends and family, who can then sign off on it. Then you can actually book the trip using Travelocity’s booking engine. The company started in the spring of 2007 and has 11 employees. The company raised a first round from Azure Capital Partners and California Technology Ventures.

Michael Kwatinetz, general partner at Azure Capital, said he looked at 150 different travel start-ups before investing in TravelMuse. He was looking for something that combined a booking engine, rich information on travel destinations and trip prices, and user-generated features. And he was looking for companies that provide the services that travel agents used to perform. If TravelMuse can convince users that it represents the right combination of Travel 3.0, then Kwatinetz’s investment will pay off.

It’s interesting to note that, as much as travel is an old Internet application, it remains one of the most popular kinds of consumer web sites today. Competitors include NileGuide.com, Yahoo! Travel and a variety of others.

Featured companies: American TeleCare, Gliknik, Juvaris BioTherapeutics, Medsphere Systems, Primera Biosystems

UPDATED: Expanded items on Juvaris, Medsphere, Primera, American TeleCare and Gliknik. Moved Broncus Tech and Aegerion Pharma items to an IPO roundup here.

Vaccine maker Juvaris Bio raises $12M, aims for $30M more — According to VentureWire (subscription required), this Pleasanton, Calif., vaccine maker raised $12 million in its first funding round. That appears to contradict an earlier item from PE Hub that said Juvaris BioTherapeutics had raised $16 million, according to a regulatory filing. The VentureWire story, however, is based on an interview with the Juvaris CEO, so we’ll run with that for now.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers provided the funding. Juvaris is developing vaccines against cancer and infectious disease using “adjuvants” — composed of DNA complexes and fatty molecules known as lipids — that stimulate immune responses. For additional coverage of the company, see here.

Juvaris also aims to raise another $30 million early next year to launch four clinical trials. Those trials will involve vaccines for influenza, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and acute myeloid leukemia.

Health-IT developer Medsphere raises $9M — Medsphere Systems, an Aliso Viejo, Calif., developer of open-source healthcare-IT systems, raised $9 million toward a third funding round, VentureWire reports. The company previously said it will target a $15 million round.

Existing investors Thomas Weisel Venture Partners, Azure Capital and Wasatch Venture Fund provided the funding, although Medsphere plans to bring new investors into the round as well. Medsphere has so far raised $16 million in equity and bridge loans, according to VentureWire.

The new fundraising is a sign that the once-troubled company may be turning itself around. Medsphere, which is developing a version of the VA’s electronic medical-record system VistA, recently settled a lawsuit the company had filed against its co-founding brothers that stemmed from a dispute over open-source software. Our previous coverage is here and here.

Gene analyzer Primera Biosystems pulls in $2.5M — Primera Biosystems, a Mansfield, Mass., developer of gene-activity analysis systems, raised $2.5 million in a second tranche of its first funding round, VentureWire reports, citing a regulatory filing. Investors included Malaysian Technology Development Corp., Burrill & Co. and MPM Capital.

Primera’s system combines two technologies — real-time PCR and microarray analysis — for use in basic research and clinical applications such as measuring viral load and drug resistance. The company last raised $11 million in 2005.

Remote healthcare-device maker American TeleCare raises $1.6M — American TeleCare, an Eden Prairie, Minn., maker of communication devices and technology for remote healthcare monitoring, raised $1.6 million from angel investors, VentureWire reports. The company has previously raised $16 million from angels.

From VentureWire: “American TeleCare provides technology and devices to help monitor patients with chronic conditions. The company’s products include audio, video and monitoring technology, including a telephonic stethoscope, with the aim of improving communication of patient information across the healthcare industry.”

Stealthy drug developer Gliknik raises $1.2M — Gliknik, a stealthy drug developer in Ruxton, Md., raised $1.2 million in seed funding, VentureWire reports. The company has drug candidates for cancer and autoimmune disease, although none are in human tests yet.