Dogster still has its bite despite the downturn
Dogster, the social network for dogs and their owners, just converted $425,000 in bridge funds into additional first-round financing, reports VentureWire. After a profitable 2008, raising a second round isn’t as pressing, the company says — citing a broader trend of success for sites catering to pet enthusiasts.
The San Francisco company, which also operates Catster.com, has enjoyed high advertising CPMs for a while now — with a $2 floor, CPMs on its homepage range from… Continue Reading
Start-up info wiki TradeVibes gets $900K
Mill River Labs has raised a $900,000 seed round for its start-up information wiki TradeVibes, which just launched in public testing mode.
TradeVibes is far from the only website to offer some kind of company database — read our hot-off-the-press coverage of LinkedIn’s new features, for example — but chief executive David Li’s vision goes beyond creating an information repository. TradeVibes, he says, can become the center of not just business facts, but also debate and… Continue Reading
Another online video investment: Mesmo.tv raises funding
Mesmo.tv, another site that wants to help you and your friends discover interesting videos, has raised $900,000.
The San Francisco company, which launched in July, lets you collect videos on its site from around the web. Then you can vote on videos and share videos with friends. This way, the company can figure out what type of videos you like so it can recommend new, related videos to you (our coverage).
It has also developed a successful… Continue Reading
Mogad gets half a million to build a better recommendation site
Mogad is the latest startup building a peer-recommendation web service, similar to Facebook’s “news feed” feature.
Unlike Facebook’s closed system, however, Mogad wants to be a “news feed” for the whole web, that can give you recommendations from anything they do. For example, if you’re purchasing a book, Mogad will show you what books your friends are most interested in.
This field is a daunting one, because it’s filled with players. Plaxo’s social network, Pulse, Forbes’ newly-purchased… Continue Reading