SolarEdge raises funds for self-adjusting photovoltaic panels

SolarEdge, maker of intelligent photovoltaic installations that can adjust to varying sunlight conditions, just brought in an undisclosed sum in a second round of funding led by Vertex Venture Capital and including Opus Capital, Genesis Partners, ORR Partners and Walden International.

The solar panels in the… Continue Reading

AlertEnterprise bags $8M for security software

AlertEnterprise, provider of software that coordinates physical and IT security to prevent overlaps, just brought in $8 million in first-round funding, all from Opus Capital. The startup, founded by the same team that started compliance software maker Virsa Systems, will use the money to market… Continue Reading

Make-your-own content widget company iWidgets raises $4.1M

Make-your-own content widget company iWidgets raises $4.1M

IWidgets is trying to help media companies (and anyone else) easily distribute videos and other content through embeddable widgets on social networks. Although there are many create-your-own widget services these days, the company has worked to differentiate itself by integrating widgets into social networking features… Continue Reading

Space-Time Insight lets power plants monitor changing needs

Space-Time Insight lets power plants monitor changing needs

Space-Time Insight (STI), maker of software that lets utilities and other infrastructure companies pinpoint data abnormalities on satellite maps, announced that it just brought in an undisclosed first round of funding to further develop its technology. Working primarily with electric-power utilities, the Fremont, Calif.-based company… Continue Reading

SolarEdge absorbs $23M to boost solar energy output

Israeli cleantech company SolarEdge has raised $23 million in a second round of funding to continue developing technology that could significantly increase the output of solar energy installations. The round — which included Vertex Venture Capital, Walden International, Opus Capital and Genesis Partners — remains… Continue Reading

TuneCore raises $7 million for music distribution services

TuneCore raises $7 million for music distribution services

Apple’s iTunes music-downloading service and its iPod music players disrupted the music industry’s CD business. TuneCore is helping to complete that process.

That’s how the company just raised $7 million in a first institutional round of funding from Opus Capital. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company allows artists… Continue Reading

Jivox matches local advertisers and user-generated video, raises $10.7 million

Jivox matches local advertisers and user-generated video, raises $10.7 million

With Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, acknowledging that Google has yet to find a way to make money with YouTube, it’s not clear that video advertising and user-generated content mesh. But Jivox, a San Mateo, California video ad network, would beg to differ. The company, which… Continue Reading

Roundup of action: Opus Select, Boobik, Branson’s space warming & more

Roundup of action: Opus Select, Boobik, Branson’s space warming & more

1. Yandex, Russian search engine, grows quickly
2. Opus launches hedge fund in New York
3. Matrix goes to China
4. Dogster takes $400,000 in financing
5. Semantic search engine Powerset raises $2M
6. Pubmatic, draw ads from all networks
7. Boobik, the Twitter clone, but for sex
8. Branson taking global… Continue Reading

Pudding Media takes first funding, gives more details

Pudding Media takes first funding, gives more details

When we first talked with Pudding Media CEO Ariel Maislos in September, he showed us his company’s software — a voice-recognition system capable of picking up keywords from conversations and using them to deliver contextual advertising to users.

The system isn’t working perfectly, but Pudding Media… Continue Reading

GainSpan receives funding for wireless sensors

GainSpan receives funding for wireless sensors

Tucked unobtrusively away in corners and out-of-the-way places, sensors record the world around us — tracking air quality, electricity usage, temperature and other variables. The modern world needs such measurements, but installing and maintaining the sensors is costly.

GainSpan is a Sunnyvale, Calif. company that says… Continue Reading

TrustedID raises $10M for credit fraud protection, though unclear how popular it is

TrustedID, a service that freezes your credit reports, so that fraudsters can’t open financial accounts under your name, has raised $10 million in a second round of funding after a prolonged period of looking.

However, the company has still not released any specifics about how it… Continue Reading

Pudding knows what you say on cellphone – and serves ads to match

Pudding knows what you say on cellphone – and serves ads to match

Pudding Media, an ambitious San Jose company, is developing a way to detect the words you speak on a mobile phone. It will then make your calls free. It will pay for them by serving ads and other content relevant to the words you speak.

We’re… Continue Reading

Eye-Fi raises $5.5M for digital camera WiFi

Mountain View, Calif.-based Eye-Fi, a company building digital camera memory cards with built-in wireless and a service that allows users to automatically upload their photos to a PC or the Internet, today closed a $5.5 first round of funding from Opus Capital and Shasta Ventures.

Eye-Fi,… Continue Reading

Kidaro raises $10M for virtual desktop product for companies

Kidaro (www.kidaro.com), an Israeli company that sells a virtual desktop computing product for enterprises (enabling remote workers to access their files securely) has raised $10 million in venture capital.

This is a hot area right now. We’ve witten about “virtualization” technology here.

The latest round was led… Continue Reading