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Sezmi, a start-formerly known as Building B, plans to change the way we watch TV through a combination of broadband and over-the-air television.

The Belmont, Calif., company promises to give consumers a new option for pay TV and an easy way to watch movies, TV, and Internet video all in one convenient place, where switching between video sources is as easy as changing channels.

Before the end of the year, Sezmi will sell a set-top box that will deliver live TV via local TV stations, pre-recorded and archived shows, and video from the Internet. The proprietary set-top will launch with DSL and 3G service provider options.

The company’s main innovation is a FlexCast video distribution technology that combines terrestrial digital TV broadcasts with broadband to deliver its programs to a set-top box. It uses that combination to create a private and secure connection to the user’s set-top so that can deliver personalized programming on existing infrastructure. Its plans have gotten mixed reviews, from excitement to “not another set-top box.” Via the Internet, it can deliver YouTube or Comedy Central videos. The company calls this TV 2.0, which to me means it must be better than “I Love Lucy.”

The company faces a lot of competition. Apple TV is going to be more attractive now that it can get movies on the same day as they go on sale as DVDs. Vudu also has a lot of movies on demand available. Tivo’s Series 3 box can appeal to high-definition video junkies. AT&T is rolling out its DSL-based IPTV service nationwide, promising interactivity and movies on demand. And Digeo will have its Moxi boxes out later this year as well. It’s a crowded market and Sezmi will need big partners or a big advertising budget to overcome all the noise.

Since many of the cable and satellite providers already have their own set-tops, Sezmi is going to enter the market city-by-city as it signs up local TV station partners. A user will be able to press a button and log into the service, getting access to personalized play lists for music, recorded TV shows, and an archive of movie favorites. You can share your play lists with friends and family and rate shows.

The company says it has designed a powerful over-the-air antenna to pick up signals, even in areas where it’s tough to get digital TV or standard signals. Each set-top will have a terabyte hard drive, enough for 1,000 hours of video. The set can pick up free digital TV broadcasts of networks but could also use the digital TV airwaves for premium paid content. The company is going to have to sign content deals separately with TV content providers, such as Showtime.

Its co-founders include Phil Wiser, former chief technology officer at Sony’s U.S. division. The price hasn’t been set. But the company says it will start commercial trials in pilot markets with broadband service providers and national retailers later this year.

Last August, the company raised a $17.5 million round led by Morgenthaler Ventures and Omni Capital.

Here’s the latest action:

Google’s search-within-search bugs some publishers — Apparently some folks such as the Washington Post aren’t looking too kindly on a feature Google added earlier this month, which lets people search within publications like the Post directly from Google. The feature lets you search for a publication on Google, for instance the Post or other sites like Wikipedia, The New York Times, and Wal-Mart, and then gives you a secondary search bar to search within those sites. Here’s the rub: If you search the Washington Post from that bar for say, “jobs,” you’ll see results for the Post’s employment pages, but also ads nearby for competing job sites like CareerBuilder and Monster.com. The NYT has the story.

Modu, a company with a module that can be inserted into various wireless devices, raises $100 million — The Israeli company is expected to close the round within the “next few weeks,” according to the Globes, which also says the company is valued at a significant $150 million before the investment. The company has raised $20 million to date from Genesis Partners, Gemini Israel Funds, SanDisk and founder Dov Moran. The company is making modular hardware products built around its tiny module, a phone-MP3 device that can morph into different functions depending on the cellular device it is snapped into; there’s a video here (or just see below).

Sun gets $44M contract from Pentagon’s DARPA to replace chip wires with laser beams –The wiring between processors on a chip is one of the biggest bottlenecks to increased efficiency in semiconductors. Sun has beat out Intel, IBM, MIT and HP on a government contract to figure out how to use silicon photonics, or light beams, to make chips faster and more efficient.

Will Fed make taxpayers pay more for Bear Stearns? — Shareholders of Bear Stearns, a third of which are Bear Stearns’ own employees, were so upset by the deal to bail out Bear Stearns at the low price of $2 per share that they’ve revolted and are pushing for a higher price of $10 per share. This is the bank that got caught up in the worst excesses of the subprime bubble, was apparently literally gambling while the ship sank and refused to participate in bailing out other companies (Long-Term Capital Management) in the past. So why would the Fed and JPMorgan want to make taxpayers pay the higher price to bail these guys out?

Search arbitrage company Geosign disintegrates after receiving record $160M investment last year – The Canadian company’s saga shows the danger of trying to use an arbitrage strategy with Google’s ads. It was buying Google keywords and sending people to landing pages with Yahoo ads on them. When Google found out about the trick, it changed its terms and shut off Geosign’s ability to conduct its arbitrage. The company’s business model disintegrated. American Capital, the lead investor in the company last year, is looking pretty foolish. Why make an investment in a company that isn’t producing anything of sustainable value? We reported on the company here last year when it raised the money.

The X Prize Foundation offers $10 million to team that produces vehicles that can get 100 miles per gallon or more — Details here. The winning cars must carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space. Qualifiers also must have four or more wheels, reach 100 mph, and reach 60 mph in 12 seconds and have a range of 200 miles.

Battery companies LionCells and Seeo raise cash — Seeo, of Berkeley, Calif., has raised nearly $1 million in capital from Khosla Ventures, to make safe, high-density batteries. This comes after the company (which doesn’t have a web site) took in $1 million last year, according to a California regulatory document cited by VentureWire. Last month, another company, Menlo Park’s Lion Cells, which makes high-power lithium ion batteries, raised approximately $12 million, according to the SEC. Battery Ventures and Nth Power participated in the second round, according to the filing.

GotVoice, the speech-to-text company, now wants to raise money too — Perhaps jolted by the announcement last week that competitor SpinVox raised $100 million in a carrier land-grab for its own speech-to-text technology, GotVoice is now saying it too wants to raise financing. To give it more time, the Kirkland, Wash. company has raised a $1.78 million “bridge round” of funding to supplement the $3 million in raised in 2006 from Ignition and other individual investors, according to VentureWire.

Silicon Valley venture firm Morgenthaler Ventures raising funds — The venture capital firm is trying to raise another fund, totaling about $400 million, but VentureWire reports that the firm’s 2001 fund is below median in its performance and suggests investors are on the fence on the firm, founded in the 1960s.

Blist, a simple database for non-experts, has raised $6.5 million in a first round of funding from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.

The company started generating buzz last month after unveiling its product at DEMO (our coverage). The product’s big selling point is ease-of-use: it has the versatility and power of a relational database, but it doesn’t require knowledge of programming languages like SQL, and it can be used like a normal spreadsheet.

Gary Morgenthaler (left), a partner with Menlo Park, Calif.-based Morgenthaler Ventures, has plenty of experience with databases — in what he calls his “former life”, he founded database companies Ingres Corporation and Illustra Information Technologies before joining Morgenthaler full-time in 1996.

Since then, he says plenty of database companies have approached the firm for funds, but Morgenthaler has turned them all down. Those companies all wanted to squeeze into the existing database market, which is a big challenge. Blist, on the other hand, wants to expand the market to normal consumers, small business owners and others who find existing databases too difficult.

For example, Frazier partner Scott Darling (left) says his aunt — in her 80s — manually compiles and sends out a family mailing list several times a year. She’ll be able to create and manage the list much more easily on Blist, Darling says, so he’s hoping to get her hooked.

Darling — whose firm, like Blist, is based in Seattle — also notes that the existing database market is worth $15 billion. He estimates that Blist can snag “the bottom 20 percent,” namely people who are struggling with current products and would gladly embrace something more user-friendly.

And there will be plenty of opportunities to make money, Darling and Morgenthaler are quick to add. For one thing, Morgenthaler says the specialization of each database, called a “blist”, will make it easy to place highly targeted ads — it’s a no-brainer for wineries to advertise on a blist of different wines. Meanwhile, the fact that anyone can create or view a blist for free means that their usage can spread virally, and communities can grow around popular blists.

“(A blist) can become a meeting point, a gathering point for people with common interests,” Morgenthaler says.

Blist will also be charging for certain premium services, such as keeping your blist private.

Imeem, a popular social network for music sharing, is acquiring music site Snocap, which lets bands set their own licensing terms for music downloads, according to TechCrunch.

No source was named, and the amount isn’t being disclosed.

Imeem had already partnered with Snocap, we reported last year, to pay a share of ad revenue to music content owners using Snocap’s technology.

Snocap had fallen on tough times recently, and it’s possible that one of its investors, Morgenthaler Ventures, decided Snocap made a good fit with Imeem, another of the firm’s investments.

Imeem also recently acquired Anywhere.fm, a Y Combinator company billing itself as “iTunes for the Web” (our coverage).

San Francisco-based Snocap, which wanted to let bands set their own licensing terms for music downloaded on the Web, is best known as the company started by Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning, although Fanning has since left to found gaming company Rupture. Struggling to find a business model, Snocap cut its staff by 60 percent in October, and was rumored to be up for sale (our coverage).

As TechCrunch and others are noting, Imeem probably prefers this outcome to Snocap going under.

Yesterday, we wrote about Kobalt Music Group, which is pursuing something similar to Snocap’s failed business model. But as we noted, there’s a key difference — Kobalt doesn’t just license music, it publishes music too.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• PEAK Surgical takes in $21M for electrosurgical tools (release)
• CellGate acquired by Australian cancer biotech ProGen for $2.5M (release)
• Traversa raises $2M for RNAi-delivery technologies (release)
• RemitDATA, Web-based healthcare-service co., takes in $5.5M (bizjournals.com)
• Spinal-implant maker Archus Orthopedics gets $10M venture loan (release)
• Promedior pulls down another $5.5M for fibrotic disease (release)
• Acrongenomics takes 11 percent stake in Molecular Vision (release)
• Hepatitis drug-developer Biolex withdraws IPO (IPO Home)
• Employee drug screener eScreen gets Carlyle investment (release)
• NovaMin raises $2.5M for dental-care products (VentureWire)
• Cardious receives $1.5M for heart-valve repair (VW)
• PE-backed Spire Healthcare buys PE-backed Classic Hospitals for £145M (FT)
• Aberdare Ventures promotes two principals to partner (release)

CellGate acquired by Australian cancer biotech ProGen for $2.5M –CellGate, a Redwood City, Calif., biotech working on new cancer drugs, sold itself to ProGen, an Australian biotech also focused on cancer, for the equivalent of about $2.5 million. The release is here. Needless to say, this represents a fire sale for a biotech that seems to have run out of time.

CellGate was pursuing drugs that aimed to shut down the growth of cancer cells either by inhibiting polyamine or by “turning down” the activity of cancer-related genes. ProGen will conduct an 18-month assessment of CellGate’s first drug candidate, a polyamine inhibitor that had already completed an early stage, phase I clinical trial, before deciding upon a mid-stage, phase II program. ProGen will also evaluate a stable of CellGate’s preclinical drug candidates.

ProGen will issue shares worth $1.5 million for CellGate’s assets, and will assume net liabilities of roughly another $1 million. The sale represents a significant loss for CellGate’s investors, including Healthcare ventures and New Enterprise Associates, who as recently as 2002 put $10 million into the company in a fourth funding round. I haven’t been able to piece together how much CellGate raised over its lifetime, although it’s certainly considerably more than that $10 million.

Traversa raises $2M for RNAi-delivery technologies – Traversa Therapeutics, a La Jolla, Calif., biotech working on ways to deliver RNA-based drugs to their cellular targets, raised $2 million in a first financing round. Investors included San Diego Tech Coast Angels, Mesa Verde Venture Partners and Morningside Group.

Traversa’s work is intimately involved with RNA interference, a newly discovered technique for “silencing” disease-related genes using short strands of RNA that trigger a natural cellular mechanism for shutting down genes. Getting those short RNA molecules into cells in the first place, however, isn’t particularly easy.

Traversa claims to have solved that problem, although it doesn’t appear to be saying how. The company will license its RNA-delivery approach to drug companies, and also offers it for use as a drug-screening technology.

RemitDATA, Web-based healthcare-service co., takes in $5M – Memphis, Tenn.-based RemitDATA, a provider of Web-based healthcare-data services, raised $5 million in a new funding round.Noro-Moseley Partners and SSM Partners provided the funding.

RemitDATA offers Web-based tools for individual physician practices designed to help them track insurance and Medicare reimbursements and scan paper records into digital form. The company also makes a sales-management tool for the homecare industry.

Promedior pulls down another $5.5M for fibrotic disease – Promedior, a Malvern, Pa., biotech focused on fibrotic disease, raised an additional $5.5 million as an extension to its first funding round. Polaris Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, HealthCare Ventures and Easton Capital participated in the financing.

Fibrotic disease is a general name for conditions that entail repeated bouts of inflammation followed by scarring that, over time, can lead to organ failure. Examples include heart failure, cirrhosis and kidney failure. Promedior aims to develop drugs that can slow or reverse the scarring process, and intends to begin clinical trials of its first drug candidate this year. The company previously raised $7 million in its first funding round.

Acrongenomics takes 11 percent stake in Molecular Vision – Acrongenomics, a Swiss company that acquires and develops life-sciences technology, took a 10.5 percent stake in Molecular Vision, a developer of credit-card sized diagnostic devices. Acrongenomics had previously announced its intent to acquire Molecular Vision, so presumably this is the first step in that plan. The release is here.

Hepatitis drug-developer Biolex withdraws IPO – Biolex Therapeutics, a Pittsboro, N.C., biotech developing ways to manufacture protein drugs in an aquatic-plant system, withdrew its planned $70 million IPO. We previously covered Biolex and its IPO dreams here.

NovaMin raises $2.5M for dental-care products – NovaMin, an Alachua, Fla., company working on tooth-remineralization products, raised $2.5 million in a third round of funding and expects another $2.5 million, VentureWire reports. Intersouth Partners provided the financing.

Cardious aims at $1.5M for heart-valve repair – Cardious, a Northfield, Minn., medical-device company working on a heart-valve bypass device, is raising $1.5 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports. The company aims to raise the funds from angel investors. Cardious is developing an aortic-valve replacement that can be put in place on a beating heart, rerouting blood flow around the damaged valve.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• CyberHeart pumps in $9M for cardiac-arrhythmia treatment (release)
• Incubator ForSight launches third device company with $6M funding (release)
• Primera Biosystems raises $21M for molecular diagnostics (release)
• Biogen Idec, PDL BioPharma take stakes in Ophthotech (release)
• Technitrol acquires medical-device component maker Sonion for $385M (release)
• DLJ Merchant Banking takes control of dentristy-product maker Den-Mat (release)
• SV Life Sciences appoints Hamish Cameron as venture partner (release)

CyberHeart pumps in $9M for cardiac-arrhythmia treatment – CyberHeart, a Menlo Park, Calif., startup developing a non-invasive treatment for heart arrhythmias, raised $9 million in a first funding round. Investors included Emergent Medical Ventures, United Investments, Venture Select and Mitsubishi.

Arrythmias, which are irregular heartbeats often caused by a malfunction in the heart’s electrical-signaling system, are often treated via a catheter-based procedure that burns away tissue where the unusual rhythms originate. CyberHeart is working on hardware and software modifications for the CyberKnife system, a robotic radiosurgery device produced by Accuray, in order to extend its use in heart applications. In other words, CyberHeart’s adaptations will, if all goes well, allow doctors to perform the same sort of procedure non-invasively with the CyberKnife, an external radiation device that is supposed to deliver high-energy beams with submillimeter accuracy.

Incubator ForSight launches third device company with $6M funding – ForSight Labs, a medical-device incubator in Menlo Park, Calif., founded its third company, ForSight VISION3 and announced that it had raised $6 million in a first funding round. Investors included Morgenthaler Ventures, Split Rock Partners and Versant Ventures — all of whom, coincidentally, back ForSight as well.

ForSight hasn’t disclosed anything about the technology or approach that the new company will take, and in fact often remains secretive about its incubated companies for quite some time. In fact, the incubator sold its second company to QLT for $42 million plus milestone payments last October — a time the startup was known only as ForSight NewCo II.

Primera Biosystems raises $21M for molecular diagnostics – Mansfield, Mass.-based Primera Biosystems, a biotech developing molecular diagnostics, raised $21 million in a second funding round. Investors included Abingworth, Interwest Partners, Malaysian Technology Development Corporation, MPM Capital, Burrill & Co. and the Invus Group.

Primera’s gene-analysis system, which it calls STAR (short for “scalable transcription analysis routine”), is designed to read the activity of up to 100 genes at once with much greater sensitivity and precision than existing microarray technologies permit. The company plans to use the funding to complete development of its system, design future diagnostic tests in cancer and infectious disease, and produce test kits for clinical research.

Snocap, the company that wanted to let bands set their own licensing terms for music downloads across the Web, has cut its staff by 60 percent, CNET has confirmed.

The San Francisco company has struggled to define a business model amid quick change in the industry, and recently had moved into new areas, setting up online stories for musicians at various sites. It said its technology can track the usage of music online, and ensure that it is being licensed properly, according to copyright. The stores were a way for musicians to sell the music. A good idea, but a fragile one considering it needed to find a way to make money from it.
We’ve been barraged by meaningless press releases from the company - four in the last month alone — that try to drum up publicity. A recent one was for aTreasure Trunk contest at the Treasure Island music festival in San Francisco.

Snocap was best known for being the post-Napster effort by Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning. Fanning had since left the company, however, starting his own gaming company, Rupture.

The blog ValleyWag first reported the story, and said the company is for sale, and a spokeswoman didn’t dispute that.

In September 2006, Snocap announced a deal to sell music on MySpace, allowing bands to sell music for whatever price they wanted, in line with Snocap’s model. Snocap would get a small cut. That deal appears to still be in place.

The company was backed with $25 million from Ron Conway, Morgenthaler Ventures and WaldenVC.

Featured companies: Ablynx, Cardiosolutions, Carigent Thereapeutics, Elusys, Genome Corp., GlobeImmune, Novazone, Targanta Therapeutics, Waterfront Media

UPDATED at 5:45am on 9/27/07

GlobeImmune raises $41M for immune-system therapies — GlobeImmune, a Louisville, Colo., biotech focused on new forms of immunotherapy to treat viral infections and cancer, raised $41.2 million in a third funding round. Investors included Wexford Capital, Celgene, the Mellon Family Investment Company, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, Eminent Venture Capital, Boston Life Science Venture, WRF Capital, HealthCare Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, Lilly Ventures, Medica Venture Partners, Adams Street Partners, Biogen Idec, Pac-Link Bioventures, China Investment and Development, Yasuda Enterprise Development, Partners Healthcare, and GC&H Investments.

GlobeImmune’s experimental drugs are based on genetically engineered yeast cells, which have been altered to produce proteins that stimulate the immune system to attack diseased cells. The company’s lead product targets hepatitis C, and has completed early-stage human trials. Another drug is intended for use in pancreatic cancer.

Waterfront Media pulls in $25M for online health info — New York’s Waterfront Media, which bills itself as the largest privately held provider of online health information, raised $25 million in a fourth round of funding. Investors included Scale Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Rho Ventures, Time Warner Ventures, BEV Capital, and Neocarta Ventures.

Waterfront said it will use the funds to expand its Everyday Health Network, a health-information portal, and to make acquisitions in the goal of becoming the “number one health destination” on the Web.

Novazone seeks $20M for food-safety tech — Novazone, a Livermore, Calif., developer of food-safety technology, is looking to raise $20 million in a third funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Novazone is developing an ozone-based disinfectant for food and water purification. The company previously raised $7 million in 2006 from Chrysalix Energy, Foundation Capital and Grauer Capital.

Cardiosolutions raises $7M for heart device — Stoughton, Mass.-based Cardiosolutions, a medical-device maker focused on minimally invasive repairs to the heart’s mitral valve, raised $7 million in a first funding round. BioVentures Investors led the round.

The company’s device is intended to restore function to the valve that separates the two left chambers of the heart without open-heart surgery. Cardiosolutions was founded in 2006 by STD Med, a Stoughton-based medical-technology firm.

Elusys wins $12M contract for anthrax treatment — Pine Brook, N.J.-based Elusys, a biotech focused on antibody-based treatments for infectious disease, won a $12 million federal contract that will support development of its anthrax treatment Anthim. That treatment targets the so-called “protective antigen” component of anthrax, theoretically blocking the bacteria’s ability to produce fatal levels of toxin.

Ablynx wins €1.9M grant for miniature antibodies — Belgium’s Ablynx, a biotech working to devise new therapies using miniature antibody molecules, received a €1.9 million ($2.6 million) grant from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders. The company said the funding would allow it to pursue new uses for its “nanobodies” and to expand its intellectual-property portfolio.

Genome Corp. raises $250K for new sequencing technology — Providence, R.I.-based Genome Corp. raised $250,000 in seed financing to extend development of a new high-speed DNA sequencing technology. The Slater Technology Fund provided the financing.

Nanotech-drug developer Carigent Therapeutics raises seed funding — Yale spinout Carigent Therapeutics, a New Haven, Conn., biotech working on a nanoparticle-based drug technology, raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding, VentureWire reports. Saint Simeon Marketing e Investimentos provided the funding in May.

The idea is that engineered nanoparticles can specifically target particular proteins, theoretically making them ideal “carriers” for other drug molecules that attack cancer, infectious pathogens or other other disease-related substances. The company has also secured $250,000 in grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Science Foundation, and plans to target cancer with its first product, it told VentureWire.

Antibiotic maker Targanta sets IPO price range — Cambridge, Mass.-based antibiotic developer Targanta Therapeutics said it now hopes to raise up to $92.6 million in an IPO by selling shares at a price of $12 to $14 apiece. Targanta has previously expected to pull in $86.3 million; I wrote about some of the risks inherent in the company’s plans to win FDA approval for an in-licenced antibiotic called oritavancin that it hasn’t even tested itself here.

So far, Targanta seems to have managed to assure investors that it can overcome those challenges, which include some potentially strong competition from a variety of sources. Its offering will still serve as a good test of the strength of the biotech IPO market, which has been iffy for well over a year.

RPM Communications, a company that offers Foonz, a conference calling service, has announced $4 million in funding from Morgenthaler Ventures.

It has also launched a new service called Utterz for quickly publishing multimedia from your phone to a web page, like a personal blog — the immediacy of Twitter but with audio, video and images (screenshot below).

To use Utterz, dial 712-432-Mooo (6666) to record yourself talking into the phone, and email any accompanying text, videos and pictures to go@utterz.com. Utterz automatically combines whatever media you send it within a specific time frame into a multimedia blog post.

Utterz offers widgets so you can display and automatically update your Utterz posts on other social networks, including blogging platforms such as Blogger, and social networks such as Myspace. A Facebook app will be launched within the next week, the company tells us.

The service also has a stand-alone social network at Utterz.com that features users’ posts, with categories like “sports” for people with particular interests.

Meanwhile, Foonz (our coverage), RPM Communication’s flagship product, is being used by small businesses, groups of friends, and others, the company says. That service stands out for letting user make free conference calls between mobile devices.

The Boston Globe has more here.

Screenshot from here.

If there are three constants in life, the Internet’s arrival on your living room TV has probably claimed its rightful spot alongside death and taxes.

There have been numerous failed attempts to bring the Internet to television, and even the recent success of Apple comes with an asterisk. AppleTV, originally touted by Steve Jobs as “the missing piece” in Apple’s multimedia empire, took only two months of cool reception to become a “hobby” for Jobs and the company.

Building B, a new Silicon Valley (Belmont, Calif.) company is the latest to try to bring Internet to your TV, and has raised $17.5 million from Morgenthaler Ventures, Omni Capital, Index Ventures and undisclosed private investors.

It’s with past woes in mind that Building B’s president Phil Wiser points out that his service “enables access to some content available on the internet…fully integrated with the traditional television content.”

Building B hasn’t launched its product yet, but says it is creating a video entertainment service that offers broadcast, cable and film programming alongside Internet content without the need of a computer. If Building B can really offer such an all-inclusive set-up box, it should overcome the large hurdle that has hindered Internet video from being adopted in the living room.

Building B has partnered with Claria for use of their Axon service to customize content. By examining user web-browsing activity with Axon, Building B will be able to provide personalized recommendations for the consumer as well as extremely targeted ads for advertisers. Unfortunately, the Axon service appears reminiscent of the tracking found in Google History – a service that created an immediate privacy uproar.

With few specifics available on the service’s content, Building B’s video-on-demand will presumably face the same uphill battle to accumulate programming as Joost – a VOD service made for the Internet. Unlike Joost, Building B has brought aboard executives from numerous broadcasting backgrounds to provide in-roads for the task. Andy Lack, Sony BMG Music Entertainment chairman, is on the board.

Content withstanding, how Building B will distinguish itself from the entrenchment of existing cable and satellite VOD services has yet to be seen.

Satiety, a Palo Alto, Calif., device maker focused on obesity, raised $30 million in a fourth round of funding. Skyline Ventures led the round, joined by HLM Venture Partners, Pinnacle Ventures, Venrock, Three Arch Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures and Thomas Fogarty.

Satiety is developing a minimally invasive device for stomach-reduction surgery consisting of a stapling tool that can be passed down the throat into the stomach. The company was founded in 2001.

IGA Worldwide, a New York-based provider of advertising that appears within video games, has raised $25 million from a collection of venture capital, private equity and large media firms.

The potential market for in-game advertising is big, even as some analysts trying to measure it are prone to hype. It made only $55 million last year, but is expected to pass $800 million in 2012 with total video game ad spending reaching $2 billion that year, according to Park Associates.

IGA claims to be the largest independent in-game advertising company using an ad-serving network. It helps advertisers target video-game players across gaming platforms and genres, and works with game developers to try to make the advertising relevant.

Greg Blonder, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures who was an early investor in IGA, says that in-game advertising is starting to become acceptable to game players and publishers — even though both groups were nervous at first.

Competitors include Microsoft, which purchased rival Massive last year, allowing it to include in-game advertising as another option for its advertising network. According to Blonder, Microsoft doesn’t have the cultural DNA to put ads into games in a way that users are comfortable with, something he thinks IGA’s executive team understands better because of their backgrounds in game publishing and advertising.

An interesting startup working on a similar idea is Mochi Media’s MochiAds. It lets game developers build games in Flash and include advertising, then splits the revenue with them.

IGA says the market potential is what created interest among strategic investors. The company has run ads for Discovery, FHM, Intel, MTV, T-Mobile and others. It also provides a communications consultancy, called Hive.

A lead investors in this round, GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity, said that the gaming industry has growth potential “that can shape the future of the new media advertising industry.”

It will probably be another generation of video games — one to three years from now — that build advertising in as part of the game, Blonder said.

Other investors in this round include KTB Ventures as well as other existing investors Easton Capital, Intel Capital and DN Capital.

CardioMind, a secretive Sunnyvale, Calif., developer of stents designed to prop open blocked arteries, raised $33 million in a third round of funding, VentureWire reports (subscription required). From the VentureWire story:

CardioMind, with 30 employees, is developing small-diameter drug-eluting stents and delivery devices for cardiovascular and neurological indications and has been largely operating in stealth mode for the past five years.

SV Life Sciences and De Novo Ventures led the round, joined by InterWest Partners, Latterell Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures and Onset Ventures.

CardioMind had previously raised $20 million in two financing rounds, according to VentureWire.

Despite recent concerns over the safety of drug-eluting stents, which are coated with a substance designed to prevent growth of scar tissue that can reblock arteries, new stent companies have continued to get a warm welcome from investors. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Xtent, for instance, raised $76 million in a February IPO. In May, Devax, a Lake Forest, Calif., stent developer, filed to raise up to $85 million in an IPO.

Danal, a company that wants to let young people use cellphones to make payments without owning a credit card, is about to launch in the U.S. with a separate subsidiary, according to the WSJ.

It lets you buy downloadable music or other digital goods — and charge it to your mobile-phone bills using an authentication code.

Danal is the latest in a zoo of such companies, however, and it isn’t clear what makes the company unique. As the WSJ piece points out, San Jose, Calif.’s PaymentOne also allows people to bill online items to their mobile bills. Start-up Obopay, of Redwood City, Calif., lets people pay each other via mobile phone, and lets you use a debit card for this — and may also eventually allow people to bill items to phone bills. There are all sorts of other payment flavors popping up, including Payoneer, aimed at online payments (see our coverage), and Vivotech (see coverage).

The subsidiary, based in San Jose, Calif., has raised $6 million in backing from Silicon Valley firm Morgenthaler Ventures. The Korean parent has invested $3.5 million more.

Merchants will have to agree to participate. As with credit card payments, they’ll have to up a small percentage of every online sale to let their customers use Danal’s service.

Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has acquired a two-thirds stake in comparison-shopping site NexTag Inc. for about $830 million, according to the WSJ’s Kevin Delaney.

The deal values the San Mateo, Calif. Nextag at about $1.2 billion, and represents an amazingly lucrative deal for NexTag, which is just one of dozens of shopping search engines and which arguably doesn’t have any clear technology advantage compared to others.

VentureBeat has tried reaching the company over the past two days for comment, but it has not responded.

The deal, assuming it will be confirmed, also tells an emotional rags-to-riches turnaround. The company, a was almost left for dead in 2000. Facing $700,000 in debt after the Internet bubble burst in 2000, chief executive Purnendu Ojha gave his employees a two-month notice. He then hunkered down with four executives and they took pay cuts of 85 percent. They managed to save a staff of 16, down from 55, and they shed their previous model of an online auction. They instead turned to online shopping comparison search. Morgenthaler Ventures pumped $1.3 million into the company to help. Technology Crossover Ventures pumped in another $18.4 million in 2004.

Ojha is a very tough, headstrong guy. We got to know him and a few of his employees during this story written two years ago. Ojha introduced an ascetic culture that some considered extreme — many employees left. PR people were frustrated by his refusal to spend on marketing. The office was dreary — across the street from a graveyard. Ojha had learned from the excesses of the dot-com Bubble, and from the mistakes of his contemporaries. Through grit, he worked NexTag’s comparison search into the less glamorous areas, such as mortgage offerings and financial services — areas which have turned out to be very lucrative.

The company generates revenue from advertising on its site and, as the WSJ writes, by charging retailers and other service providers to direct consumers to their sites. NexTag’s Web site says more than 11 million people use its service monthly. It has been in the black almost from the beginning of its turnaround.

Under the deal, existing investors, including NexTag management and venture-capital firm Morgenthaler Ventures, will keep stakes in the company, according to the WSJ.

The size of the deal reflects the excitement in the private equity world about prospects in Internet advertising — it follows Hellman & Friedman’s home-run when it sold DoubleClick for a planned $3.1 billion to Google.