Silicon Clocks takes $7.1M for processor timing devices
Silicon Clocks, a Fremont, Calif. maker of smaller, cheaper chips with timing capabilities, has brought in $7.1 million of a targeted $10.7 million round of equity. The company says it will use the financing for working capital, reports VentureWire.
It last raised funds in 2007, adding $8 million to its then $19 million first round of funding. Past backers include Charles River Ventures, Formative Ventures and Tallwood Venture Capital.
Search analytics startup Enquisite raises $8M
Enquisite, which is rolling out several search analytics tools, has raised $8 million in new funding, according to VentureWire. One of its first products will verify that ads are running where they’re supposed to.
The round, the San Francisco company’s second, was led by Castile Ventures and Formative Ventures, with participation from previous investors The Entrepreneurs’ Fund III and Retro Ventures.
Samplify Systems — a rare semiconductor startup
Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs alike have been bemoaning the fact that nobody starts semiconductor companies anymore. It seems that it’s just too costly and too risky for entrepreneurs to challenge old world chip companies who have locked up the market.
But the folks who started Samplify Systems didn’t listen. The Santa Clara, Calif. company is coming out of stealth today with a plan to create a smarter generation of chips that convert analog data to digital… Continue Reading
Soasta raises $6.4M for cloud-based testing
Mountain View, Calif.-based Soasta, a company that tests applications on cloud networks to iron out problems before users migrate to the cloud, has raised a second funding round of $6.4 million.
Soasta sells its services to other companies, who want to move their data or users onto cloud networks — remotely stored information and applications.
Formative Ventures led the round, with participation from Canaan Partners and The Entrepreneurs’ Fund. Soasta’s first round, taken in January 2007, was… Continue Reading
Smalltown expands its scope to the Internet community at large with Webcards.com
Online local community site, Smalltown, is starting to think bigger picture. Today, the service launches a new site, Webcards.com, to simplify advertising campaigns over multiple platforms. The idea is still to focus on small local business, but to help these companies easily expand to the Internet at large.
Webcards (the product) have actually been a part of Smalltown since the site launched in October of 2006. Now, however, with an extremely easy-to-use online builder, users can… Continue Reading
Capella wires in $15M more for optical switches
Capella Intelligent Subsystems makes optical switches for traffic management in optical networks. Their switches have the ability to be wavelength-selective, allowing higher level monitoring and routing capabilities.
The company has been around for some time, having been started in 2000 and funded with $44 million. We reported last year that it had jump-started its sputtering operations with a fresh $20 million infusion.
Lucas Venture Group led the latest investment of $15 million, while previous investors Levensohn Venture… Continue Reading
Silicon Clocks raises $8M more for chip timing
Silicon Clocks is a fabless semiconductor company focused on integrating timing devices directly onto processor chips.
Current quartz-based technology, which is several decades old, requires a separate processor piece and is somewhat limited in its abilities. Silicon Clocks claims it can reduce the size and cost of chips by building a silicon-germanium micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) directly onto a chip.
The $8 million round is a second tranche, bringing the company’s total first funding to $19 million. Investors… Continue Reading
Smalltown, a small local site, acquires tinier Local2Me
Despite the meltdown and slow death of a local community news site BackFence, the local market continues to draw interest.
Last week, the hyperlocal news and blog site, Outside.in, raised a $1.5 million second round of funding and a month ago, American Towns raised $3.3 million. Yahoo and Google, despite offering more sophisticated local results, haven’t yet created vibrant communities. Yelp, another locale listing site, hasn’t sewn up the market either.
Today, Smalltown, a site that helps… Continue Reading
Staccato raises $17.5M for wireless device technology
Staccato Communications, a San Diego, Calif. maker of semiconductors and equipment that wirelessly connect devices to personal computers, has raised $17.5 million in financing, bringing its total to $53 million.
Investors include Allegis Capital, Bay Partners, Charles River Ventures, Formative Ventures, Interwest Partners and Vision Capital.
Mashery, a mashup company, raises less than $5M
San Francisco start-up Mashery has raised another round of capital to help Web companies open their platforms so that developers can build applications on top of them.
By releasing an API, or Application Programming Interface, a company can allow “mashups” of its data, and gain reach across the Web. Google did this with Google Maps, for example, mixing them with everything from housing to restaurant information. Now all sorts of businesses — banks for example… Continue Reading
Samplify, an IP compression technology, raises $6.5M
Samplify Systems, a Menlo Park, Ca. company that provides compression technology that helps makes the transfer of large files such as medical imaging faster and more efficient, has raised $6.5 in a first round of funding.
Investors included Charles River Ventures and Formative Ventures.
From the company’s statement:
Samplify recently launched its high-speed, FPGA-based sampled-data compression technology. Samplify’s technology can compress real-time signals up to 40 Giga samples per second, solving the storage and bandwidth bottlenecks… Continue Reading
Capella, optical switch company, restarts with $20M
Capella, a provider of optical switches for broadband networks, said it has raised $20 million of equity and debt financing in what amounts to a financial restarting of the company.
Capella sells wavelength selective switches (WSS) for use in reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADM) applications.
The funding was was co-led by Levensohn Venture Partners and Rustic Canyon Partners and included funding from Formative Ventures, as well as participation by existing investors. Square1 Bank provided the banking and… Continue Reading
Marketocracy lets you place money with the best
Mutual funds are surprisingly dysfunctional, and yet you rely on them for your retirement.
Marketocracy, a six-year-old start-up in San Mateo, may have just brought some sanity to the process.
First, some context: U.S. investors have $4 trillion wrapped up in equity mutual funds, but our decisions about which funds to invest in are almost always made on the fund’s past performance, or vague guesstimate about how it will do in the future — which is… Continue Reading
Smalltown, the hyperlocal Web site, worth a look
Updated
New start-up Smalltown is going after the local business listings market with an ambitious, focused social network model. It has a charming “smalltown” feel, and seeks to build a community of users around those listings. This company will be one to watch.
It launches today (Tuesday). It has received $3 million in venture capital from Formative Ventures.
Founder and chief exec Hal Rucker gave us a demo of the site. It aims for comprehensive listings of businesses,… Continue Reading