VentureBeat

SearchMe is another search startup that wants to take on Google.

It is a visual search engine, that shows you results in a series of revolving panes, with each pane featuring a search result. In iTunes, this format is used to feature the covers of albums, not search results.

SearchMe also has other potentially useful features. It offers categories to help you find what you’re looking for more quickly. For example, if you type in “labrador puppies,” as seen in the demo video below, you can then additionally click on an icon for puppies to clarify that you’re not looking for information about a province of the Canadian government. If you want a list of SearchMe search results instead of the visual interface, you can drag open the list from the bottom of the screen.

I haven’t had a chance to test it out myself (the site is in private beta, you can sign up on its homepage), but Kara Swisher has a more in-depth look, here. She also notes that Google is experimenting with a similar project in its labs.

Here’s the company’s video demo:

This is the latest search product from the Mountain View company — it has raised $31 million from Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures and Lehman Brothers, to date, so it has some room to experiment. VentureBeat readers may remember it first surfacing under the name Kavam, in early 2006 (our coverage), then launching a search engine for Wiki pages that was underwhelming compared to Google’s ability to search wiki pages (our coverage).

From my outside-the-private-beta perspective, the best thing the company has going for it is the experience of the founding team — which is probably the rationale behind the large amount of funding the company has received over the years. Specifically, chief executive and co-founder Randy Adams (LinkedIn profile here) has already founded and sold a number of successful companies including Emerald City Software, bought by Adobe Systems; the Internet Shopping Network, bought by the Home Shopping Network; Navitel Communications, bought by Spyglass, Inc.; and more. In fact, Sequoia owes him one — he helped introduce Sequoia to Yahoo, which led to the firm’s initial investment in the company. Then he served on Yahoo’s board of directors during the first year of its operation. Some more details here.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based PEAK Surgical, a device company developing new surgical tools that aim to control bleeding via electric energy, raised $21 million in a third funding round. Investors included Signet Healthcare Partners, Lehman Brothers and Venrock Associates.

The company is working on new electrosurgical tools that it says should offer significant improvements over the existing technology for using electric pulses to heat surgical instruments for cutting or coagulation of tissue. PEAK doesn’t go into great detail about its technique on its Web site or in its release, except to cite a number of scientific references and to say that it relies on short-pulsed, “plasma-mediated” electrical discharges.

The technology, however, originated at Stanford, where PEAK, it turns out, stands for “pulsed electron-avalanche knife.” The technique, developed by a team led by Daniel Palanker, involves using a high voltage electric field to create a plasma, a kind of electrically charged gas, which can be shaped and controlled to make clean cuts in tissue.

PEAK — the company, that is — claims the technology can limit the heat damage that normal electrosurgical tools can cause to surrounding tissue. Although the technique seems to have originated for use in retinal surgery, PEAK says that it is exploring its use in almost every surgical field but ophthalmic, including general, heart, gynecologic, plastic and neurological surgery.

KaloBios, a Palo Alto, Calif., biotech antibody-therapeutic company, raised $20 million in a third funding round. The company is developing new drugs based on monoclonal antibodies, which target specific cells or proteins in the body. Its lead candidate, an antibody against granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor, or GM-CSF — a protein that helps regulate the white-blood-cell immune response — is intended to treat a variety of immune-related diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.

Lehman Brothers led the round, joined by MPM Capital, Sofinnova Ventures, Alloy Ventures, 5AM Ventures, Singapore Bioinnovations, and Lotus BioScience Ventures. The funding will allow KaloBios to support clinical testing of two antibodies and to move a third into human tests.

Snoqualmie, Wash.-based Light Sciences Oncology, a developer of light-activated cancer drugs, raised $30 million in a second funding round, even though it still has an IPO registration on file with the SEC. The latest funding closes out the company’s second round, which includes a $15 million investment by Fidelity Investments I wrote about here.

The company didn’t name its latest investors in its press release, but according to VentureWire they include Lehman Brothers, the hedge fund Deephaven Capital Management, the Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, and Burrill & Co.

Test line: Technorati Profile

Tumri, online advertising company that lets publishers choose the type of advertisers they want to run in a so-called AdPod on their Web sites, has raised a $10 million second round of funding.

Lehman Brothers Venture Partners led the round, which included existing investors Shasta Ventures and Accel Partners.

There’s a whole gaggle of new advertising networks, perhaps too many, but with merger and acquisition fever raging in this sector, it makes sense that investors double their bets in the hope their companies get snapped up by a Google, Yahoo or Microsoft or a handful of more traditional ad giants seeking to enter online world.

Last month, VentureBeat covered Mountain View, Calif.-based Tumri’s AdPod service which allows publishers to display targeted product ads with themes that are relevant for their own sites (see example below). Tumri’s network includes advertisers such as Wal-Mart, Sears and Zappos. Revenue is split between Tumri and the publisher on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-action (CPA) basis.

Tumri also added two VPs to its management team. David Kim comes from search engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier to lead business development. Sandeep Nawathe comes from supply chain management firm Amphire to lead engineering.

This latest round brings Tumri’s total funding to $16.5 million.