D.light: Bringing light to the developing world
At first glance, the Kiran solar-powered lamp made by D.light is just plain cute — it would look right at home in an Apple store. But the real news is that it could save people in the developing world a substantial amount of money, and spare the atmosphere millions of tons of carbon dioxide by replacing kerosene lamps in countries where they are still the primary source of light.
The Kiran (the Sanskrit word for “ray… Continue Reading
Video advertising network Vdopia takes $4.7M
Vdopia, an online video advertising network targeting Indian people around the world, has brought in $4.7 million in a first round of venture funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in San Jose, Calif., it is backed by Nexus India Capital, which already chipped in $10 million to the round, among others.
PubMatic scores more funds to optimize ad revenues
PubMatic, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that works with online publishers to squeeze more revenue out of their advertising strategies, announced that it has brought in an undisclosed amount in a second round of funding from existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus India Capital and Helion Ventures. The company, which partners with 5,500 publishers right now, says the money will be used to fuel worldwide expansion.
PubMatic offers a suite of tools to streamline publishers’ ad… Continue Reading
Dimdim raises $6M for free web meetings
Updated
Dimdim, the free, open-source web meeting company, has raised $6 million in a second round of funding.
The concept is pretty simple — like WebEx, but free. Dimdim offers all the basic tools that you’d expect from a web meeting service, including a collaborative whiteboard, desktop sharing, audio and video. It doesn’t have too many bells and whistles, and some of the technical kinks still need to be worked out; I’ve run into a few display… Continue Reading
D.light Design sets out to replace the kerosene lamp, with eco-friendly lighting for India
A San Francisco-based company with plans to help the developing world snuff out its kerosene-burning lamps and replace them with cheap, solar-powered LEDs and compact fluorescents has finally unveiled its production models and announced the details of its for-profit business plan.
We’ve followed the progress of D.light Design from a Stanford design competition in late 2006 through its launch in the non-academic world, to the present moment. Started by two Stanford MBAs, D.light has been working… Continue Reading
Indian IT provider NetMagic Solutions raises $20M
NetMagic Solutions, which provides managed IT services in India, has raised $20 million in a second round of funding.
The round was led by Fidelity International Limited and prior investor Nexus India Capital. NetMagic says it will spend the money on service expansion, introducing new data centers in India and an effort to establish itself in North America.
With offices in India and Sunnyvale, Calif., the company says it provides Internet data centers, managed hosting, remote infrastructure… Continue Reading
PubMatic raises $7M for small publisher advertising
A sort of auction site for ads, PubMatic attempts to match its ad inventory against its subscriber base of small- and medium-sized web publishers to maximize the revenue of the latter.
The company says it has about 1,500 publishers on board and seven of the top eight ad networks. We last wrote about the company in August, before its opened its service for public beta testing.
PubMatic is co-based in India and Menlo Park, Calif. Its $7… Continue Reading
The new video players: Kyte, DimDim
There are a ton of “video player” companies out there, and they’re starting to blur.
It takes a lot to impress these days. A video player in 2007 should be able to upload any video file — from your desktop or from the Web — and then have it run from any Website from a widget.
Just when we thought innovation was running out, we hear about Kyte, a video player that allows live video and… Continue Reading