VentureBeat

Still on its quest to become the Salesforce.com of project portfolio management (PPM), Seattle startup Daptiv has raised $9 million more to develop and market its platform to large companies.

PPM, for those of you who haven’t spent much time in a cubicle, refers to the sets of goals, objectives and steps required for completing large projects. In essence, it’s how corporations keep their internal operations ticking along. Given the size and complexity of most modern organizations, PPM is a sizable market, and Daptiv is trying to take it away from providers like Microsoft much as Salesforce took the customer relationship management market from Oracle.

The company has grown its client base by about 100 companies to 800 total since I covered it late last year. However, CEO Jeff Pancottine says that an even more important metric is how many individual users are on the platform; that number has reached 100,000. Daptiv has also doubled in size, to over 100 employees.

Pancottine also pointed to an addition to the company’s platform that allows ordinary users to build forms-based business applications, without any programming knowledge. The company has allowed some partners to test the software out, and is planning a full beta test later this year.

The $9 million round is a second tranche of the company’s second funding, which brings the whole round to $21 million. The investors in this tranche were Bay Partners, Kennet Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. The company will likely start looking for another round next year. The company is eleven years old, and was recapitalized in 2005, which is when it got its first round of funding to start it off after considerable restructuring.

Amazon buys social network for book lovers — Shelfari, a small social network for bibliophiles, has been acquired by Amazon.com, according to John Cook at the Seattle PI. Amazon also has a stake in Shelfari’s main competitor, LibraryThing.

Internet Explorer to subtract some ads — A feature called InPrivate Blocking will stop tracking pixels that help advertisers see where you have been on the web, while another privacy feature will prevent information like cookies and browsing history from being saved.

China considers a stimulus package — The growth of China often pointed to as proof that the credit slowdown won’t cause a global slump. But if the country is considering a stimulus, that may indicate that matters are worse than expected.

Triphub gets deadpooled — TechCrunch has the post-mortem on the Seattle-based travel site.

Set-top box maker Vudu goes through layoffs — Hard-pressed set-top box maker Vudu, which most recently added hi-def porn to its offerings, appears to be suffering through some layoffs.

States group sues EPA — A group of 12 states is suing the Environmental Protection Agency for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a fairly necessary step in convincing industry to switch to cleaner power sources.

Micro-batteries built on viral assembly line — MIT researchers have coaxed viruses into building a dense, miniaturized battery that could be biocompatible, giving fanboys hope of one day embedding an iPhone in their arm.

Strengthening dollar may hurt tech — Large tech companies including eBay and Yahoo will be hurt by a rallying dollar, according to the LA Times.

Obama takes the title for largest mobile marketing event — A text from Barack Obama’s campaign announcing his vice presidential pick reached 2.9 million people, according to Nielsen.

Car info network DriverSide acquires fairBenjamin — The newly-launched car information site has acquired a fairBenjamin, a cost estimation and diagnostics site, which should help it keep up a healthy rivalry with RepairPal, another new site.

Silicon Valley Bank adds to Utah outpost — Could Salt Lake City be growing in importance as a tech and life sciences hub? Silicon Valley Bank must think so; it’s beefing up its presence in the area.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• VaxGen, Raven Bio terminate merger agreement (release)
• Aerovance gets $20M in venture debt for respiratory disease (release)
• EKOS raises $5M for ultrasound catheters (peHUB)
• Intelligent Bio-Systems draws $353K for high-speed genome sequencing (peHUB)
• Quintessence Bio takes in $5M for cancer-directed proteins (VentureWire)
• 7 Health Ventures adds three members to investment team (release)
• Contract manufacturer Cytovance names Darren Head CEO (release)

VaxGen, Raven Bio terminate merger agreement – A weirdly structured, always hard-to-understand merger between the failed vaccine biotech VaxGen and startup Raven Biotechnologies has collapsed. The two companies called off the combination after it became clear that a majority of VaxGen shareholders would reject it.

The deal aimed to create a new company out of VaxGen’s cash holdings and biomanufacturing facilities and Raven’s antibody-drug program, which remains at an early stage of development. The merger would also have given Raven a quick route to public listing of its stock. Both companies are located in South San Francisco, Calif.

But many VaxGen shareholders — in particular, the investment firm MedCap Management & Research, which waged a sharp effort to derail the deal — believed the deal undervalued VaxGen, which they figured would yield a better return to investors through liquidation. VaxGen, a once pioneering maker of experimental vaccines against HIV and anthrax that is now little more than an empty shell, said it would immediately assess its strategic alternatives, including possible liquidation.

Aerovance gets $20M in venture debt for respiratory disease – Aerovance, a Berkeley, Calif., developer of asthma and eczema drugs, took on $20 million of venture debt. The startup drew down $10 million of that sum at closing; the rest will become available once it achieves unspecified milestones.

A syndicate of lenders provided the funding, including Oxford Finance Corporation, Silicon Valley Bank and Comerica Bank. Aerovance, which spun out of Bayer Pharmaceuticals in 2004, said the funding would enable it to continue looking for a drug-company partner for its asthma drug and to pursue other “strategic goals.”

EKOS raises $5M for ultrasound catheters – EKOS, a Bothell, Wash., maker of ultrasound-enhanced drug-delivery systems, raised $5 million in new equity funding, peHUB reports, citing a regulatory filing. No investors were disclosed. As we wrote last June when the company raised $10 million in venture debt, EKOS makes catheters that use both drugs and ultrasound to break up blood clots.

Intelligent Bio-Systems draws $353K for high-speed genome sequencing – Waltham, Mass.-based Intelligent Bio-Systems raised $353,000 in a first funding round, peHUB reports, citing a regulatory filing. The company is developing next-generation DNA analysis systems and promises to deliver technology that can sequence a full human genome for just $5,000 in about 24 hours, as we described earlier.

Here’s a summary of the latest action. See below for more:
1) In-Q-Tel invests in Forterra Systems, a private virtual world creator
2) Appfuel, another Facebook ad network, but with better ad targeting
3) AOL to spin out advertising arm?
4) Project Playlist, for sharing music playlists on other sites, raises $3 million
5) Four Interactive, a local business review site, gets $10 million from Valley VC’s

In-Q-Tel invests in Forterra Systems, a private virtual world creator – San Mateo-based Forterra’s software platform lets developers quickly create private, online virtual-world scenarios for organizations that can be used to simulate potential real world events, such as a government’s secret spy missions.

After running a scenario, the software lets its users get integrated reports that analyze participants’ actions to figure out what when right and what went wrong.

Besides government agencies, Forterra serves organizations in healthcare, education and other industries.

The amount of funding was undisclosed. The company said a “technology advancement agreement” was part of the deal, which sounds like customization for the needs of the US government. In-Q-Tel invests in technology companies that in some way further the interests of the US intelligence community.

Appfuel, another Facebook ad network, but with better ad targeting – RockYou, VideoEgg, Social Media and other Facebook ad networks have already been active for months. Today, San Francisco-based Appfuel is launching with the claim that it can more quickly and accurately serve targeted advertising within Facebook applications

In one example, if you state you’re a fan of the band the FooFighters on your Facebook profile page, then you might see an ad that shows you information about the band’s latest shows or where you can buy band t-shirts. GigaOm has more.

The company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding.

In other Facebook news, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been spotted in Seattle, on his way to talk to Microsoft — possibly about selling them some Facebook shares (our previous coverage).

AOL to spin out advertising arm? – New Techrunch editor Erick Schonfeld has the potential scoop.

Project Playlist, for sharing music playlists on other sites, raises $3 million – Another social music site with a widget, the Beverly Hills company lets you create, embed and listen to playlists on MySpace, Facebook and other social networks; PEHub reported the funding, although no investors were named.

Four Interactive, a local business review site, gets $10 million from Valley VC’s — The Bangalore-based company owns AskLaila.com, a Yelp-like site in India where you can read others’ reviews about local businesses and add your own. It includes proximity search, SMS notifications and other services. More here.

Investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank and returning investor Matrix Partners.