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Here’s the latest action:

Rulings could make website owners more vulnerable to lawsuits — Decisions made by judges in two separate cases, against Friendfinder.com and Roommates.com, could expose websites to potentially harmful lawsuits, according to an article on CNET. Websites were previously immune to most lawsuits based on content added to their sites by others.

Video search firm Meevee wants to throw in the towel — “Combining with an established player will maximize the potential for the community, technology and content relationships the company has built,” in-video search company Meevee said in a press release yesterday. Translation: Despite some growth, 1.1 million unique users per month just isn’t cutting it for a company that took $27 million in funding. Investors included Bay Area Equity Fund, Defta Partners, FCPR Israel Discovery Fund, Labrador Ventures, Rothschild Ventures and WaldenVC, according to peHUB. We wrote more about the company’s business model here.

Scientists learn to map CO2 emissions — Researchers have found a way to do daily tracking of carbon dioxide emissions based on locality. Preliminary results show the Southeast is an even heavier emitter than previously realized (but California produces a lot, too). It seems likely that such maps could someday be used to help address problem areas, when attempting to scale back emissions.

EMC lays down $213M for storage firm Iomega — Iomega, the maker of the popular branded storage drives Zip and Rev, sold itself to information infrastructure company EMC for $213 million. EMC has three main divisions, in content management, information security and storage; the acquisition should help it expand further into the consumer market.

Nimsoft acquires Indicative Software — Nimsoft works in the information technology management field, competing with the “Big Four” made up of Hewlett-Packard, CA, IBM and BMC, while Indicative Software makes domain monitoring and end-user experience testing tools for IT departments. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Indicative had taken $19 million from Sequel Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Vista Ventures. [Red Herring]

Search engines pressured to delete user info more quickly in Europe – Google and other search engines should delete info showing what users searched for within six months, says the European Commission, which is considering making the suggestion a commandment. Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer claims the data should be kept for up to 18 months in order to help protect user’s identities, but the argument may not sway the EU. Thanks to the global nature of the internet, any decision made overseas may well be reflected at home.

Mytopia raises part of first round for cross-platform gaming — We recently wrote about Mytopia, which is working on connecting games across platforms like Facebook and MySpace. It’s raised about half of a sub-$5 million first round of funding, according to VentureWire. Update: According to Mytopia itself, they’re simply “in the midst” of raising a first round, and have not disclosed the total amount they’re aiming for.

Floating solar balloons proposed to power remote regions — Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology has created a design for floating, thin-film solar cell-coated balloons capable of generating about a kilowatt of power each, aimed at powering remote regions. It plans to start selling them in spring 2009. One question: Don’t remote regions, almost by definition, have plenty of free space on the ground? [Reuters via Ecogeek]

Even spooks need their virtual worlds. Where else, after all, could they rehearse their training missions against the bad guys of the world?

Forterra Systems and IBM said today that they’re teaming up to create virtual worlds for U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies. The so-called “Babel Bridge” project will allow spy agencies to use virtual worlds and Web 2.0 technologies to share intelligence information. Last month, Forterra raised a $10 million round (our coverage).

The project will feature a 3-D “unified communications” world which ties together voice, e-mail, text messages and other forms of communication. Users would access intelligence data from computers or mobile phones with secure connections. The two companies have already completed a prototype and will begin development in the second quarter, said Chris Badger, vice president of marketing at Forterra in San Mateo, Calif.

Intelligence agencies could soon use a virtual world to rehearse how they could attack a location that houses a terrorist cell, according to Forterra. The same technology could be used to prepare a hospital’s staff on how to react to a natural disaster.

Forterra was founded as part of There.com in 1998. In 2004, Forterra spun out of There, while Makena Technologies focused on its own consumer-oriented virtual world, There.com.

Forterra’s backers include the CIA-funded In-Q-Tel venture firm and Jerusalem Venture Partners, Chichen Itza Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures.

While Makena Technologies pursued consumer technologies, Forterra focused on using the virtual world technology for military simulations. Video demos of its projects are available here.

Badger said the alliance with IBM gives it a stamp of credibility as virtual worlds have gone through their own cycle of hype and despair. Deb Magid, director of software strategy at IBM’s venture capital group, said in an interview that business and government applications are now clearly becoming viable as virtual worlds spread beyond entertainment and games.

 Updated

Consorte Media, a niche ad network targeting the increasing number of Hispanics online, has raised $7 million in its second round of financing.

While Latin America is slowly getting online, the overall Hispanic market on the web, estimated to be at around 20 million consumers, has been getting significant attention. In August, Batanga, a Hispanic entertainment portal, raised $30 million. In September, Wamba, a social network for Latin America, raised 3 million Euro, and Sienna Ventures has been building a $100 million fund to invest in Hispanic-focused companies.

The investment in San Francisco’s Consorte, which has recently added two former Univision sales directors to its team, is yet another example of interest in this market. It also indicates the momentum behind niche ad networks, spurned on by the success of Glam and Federated Media. The idea behind niche ad networks is that, unlike monoliths like AdSense, the more agile companies can bring extensive knowledge of a smaller corner of the web to attract content sites that fit the mold and deliver them directly to advertisers. Consorte has signed up around 300 Hispanic content sites that, together, deliver a billion impressions per month. Its customers include Best Buy and Monster.

Sutter Hill Ventures led the round, which included follow up funding from Mayfield Fund.

[Updated: The original post said that Consorte had around 50 sites in its network.  That number is now 300]

Updated

While Silicon Valley takes a breather this Thanksgiving weekend from a hectic year of deal-making, the action continues over in China.

1) Well-connected China video site gets $25 million more
2) More rumors of Facebook purchases in China
3) Qunar, a Chinese travel search engine, raises $10 million

Well-connected China video site gets $25 million more – Youku.com is a thriving Chinese YouTube-style video sharing site, and has just raised another round of funding, according to Chinese news organization Sohu. It is one of the larger Chinese video sites, with more than 70 million video plays a day according to Pacific Epoch. Youku also has a lot of big-time connections. Victor Koo, the chief executive of Youku, used to be the president of Sohu, and the two companies have a business relationship. Farallon Capital, the hedge fund, led an initial round of $3 million in March 2006. Bain Capital venture subsidiary Brookside Capital Partners led this latest round, with other investors including Chengwei Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. We haven’t gotten any comment from Farallon or Sutter Hill to learn more about the company, although well-known Sutter Hill partner Len Baker is on Youku’s board.

More Facebook-China rumors – Either Facebook is trying to buy its way into the Chinese social networking market or a lot of people in China wish it were. We reported on a rumor a couple of weeks ago that Facebook was trying to buy Zhanzuo, a Chinese Facebook-style social network that is backed by Sequoia.

The same — or at least very similar — rumor came around again this week. Facebook adamantly denied anything of the sort. Now, according to Interfax China, Facebook is trying to buy student-focused search engine Tianwang. We’re waiting to hear back from Facebook about this one.

Qunar, a Chinese travel search engine, raises $10 million — The round was led by Lehman Brothers Private Equity — yet another very large financial organization jumping into early-stage Chinese companies. Return investors include GSR Ventures and the Mayfield Fund. Alarm:Clock has more.

Featured companies: Acceleron Pharma, Bledsoe Brace Systems, Eurobiobiz, Genoptix, Harmony Information Systems, ImmuneWorks, Pasteuria Bioscience, Renal CarePartners, Quantum Genomics, Synergy Software, Vitreo Retinal Technology

UPDATED: Expanded items on Genoptix and Acceleron Pharma.

Diagnostics biotech Genoptix prices IPO above range, raises up to $98M — Genoptix became one of the first biotechs in a long time to demonstrate some oomph with an IPO, pricing its shares above its expected range and then soaring nearly 50 percent in its first day of trading. Genoptix priced its shares at $17 apiece, above its expected range of $14 to $16, netting itself as much as $97.8 million in the process. (Actually, existing shareholders sold close to three-quarters of a million shares in the IPO, so the proceeds to Genoptix are more like $85.6 million.)

At the very least, the positive reception appears to support the notion that biotech investors are currently more interested in reliable service businesses such as Genoptix’s diagnostics work than they are in traditional biotech moon shots, since they offer lower risk even at the cost of slower growth. Perhaps there’s hope for Talecris Biotherapeutics after all.

We’ve covered the company here and here. The offering initially valued Genoptix at $265.2 million, although today’s share run-up to $25.35 now values the company at $395.5 million. Genoptix provides diagnostic services to cancer and blood-disease specialists in order to help with diagnosing and selecting appropriate treatments for various cancers.

Acceleron Pharma draws in $31M for tissue-regeneration drugs — Cambridge, Mass.-based Acceleron Pharma, a biotech focused on “regenerative” drugs that target a family of growth and development proteins, raised $31 million in a third funding round. Investors included Bessemer Venture Partners, MPM BioEquities, QVT Financial, Advanced Technology Ventures, Flagship Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Polaris Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Venrock.

The company’s lead drug candidate, ACE-011, aims to stimulate bone regrowth in cancer patients. That drug should move into mid-stage clinical trials in the first quarter of next year. The company intends to begin early human tests of two other drugs — one designed to increase muscle mass and strength, the other an “anti-angiogenesis” cancer drug — next year.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Medical-IT co. Harmony Info raises $28M, acquires Synergy Software (release)
• Vitreo Retinal Tech adds $3M to round for eye drugs (PE Hub)
• ImmuneWorks gets $300K for lung-disease drugs (release)
• Bledsoe Brace sells majority stake to Essex Woodlands (PE Hub)
• Quantum Genomics acquires Eurobiobiz (release)
• Renal CarePartners acquires two dialysis providers (VentureWire, sub req’d)
• Pasteuria Bioscience names David Duncan new CEO (release)

(UPDATED: See below.)

Featured companies: FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, Ophthotech, Pevion Biotech, Restoration Robotics, Glide Pharma, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Nanosphere, SurModics, BioFX Laboratories

FoldRx Pharma to receive $22M against cystic fibrosis — Cambridge, Mass.-based FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, a biotech focused on diseases that result from misfolded proteins, will get $22 million over the next five years from an affiliate of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to further its work against the genetic lung disease. The money will be paid as FoldRx meets various developmental milestones, including pushing two experimental drugs into early-stage human trials. The company’s current drug candidates, however, don’t target cystic fibrosis, and instead aim to take on a particular class of diseases known as amyloidosis and Parkinson’s disease.

The Boston Globe and the WSJ Health Blog have more.

Newly formed Ophthotech raises $36M against eye disease — Ophthotech, a newly formed Princeton, N.J., biotech with a focus on eye disease, raised a whopping $36 million in a first funding round. The company, founded by a bevy of former Eyetech Pharmaceuticals officials, is going to follow directly in the former company’s footsteps by taking aim at age-related macular degeneration with aptamers licensed from Archemix (which we wrote about here).

Investors in the round included SV Life Sciences, HBM BioVentures and Novo A/S. (See update below.)

Pevion Biotech gets $29M for vaccines — Pevion Biotech, a Bern, Switzerland-based vaccine developer, raised $29 million (CHF35 million) in a first funding round. Investors included BZ Bank Aktiengesellschaft, BB Biotech Ventures II, CC Private Equity Partners and Bachem Holding. The company is conducting clinical trials of vaccines against malaria, breast cancer and hepatitis C.

Hair-transplant automator Restoration Robotics raises $25M — Restoration Robotics, a Mountain View, Calif., developer of robotic surgery systems for hair transplants, raised $25 million in a second round of funding, PE Hub reports. The company’s Web site is a stub and the linked article doesn’t contain much information, but an April VentureWire store republished at Alta Partners’ site gets to the root of the matter:

Sutter Hill Ventures and Alloy Ventures, for example, have invested in the first and second rounds raised in 2005 and 2006, respectively, by Restoration Robotics Inc., which is testing a robotic device that performs hair transplants. Transplant-surgery outcomes vary according to the surgeon’s skill. Restoration’s robot — which is surgeon-controlled — produces uniform results in half the time, says CEO Jim McCollum. Investors hope this pushes hair transplants into the mainstream. Today, “people think of late-night commercials when they think of hair restoration,” says Sutter Hill Managing Director Jeffrey W. Bird.

Investors in the round include InterWest Partners, Alloy Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Glide Pharma raises $4.6M for needle-free drugs — U.K. specialty pharma Glide Pharma raised $4.6 million (£2.3 million). Investors included Oxford Technology 4 VCT and Oxford Capital Partners. The company is developing drugs that can be delivered via its own needle-free injection system. We’ve written about other startups pursuing similar technology, including StrataGent Life Sciences and Macroflux.

Reliant Pharma refiles for a $400M IPO — Reliant Pharmaceuticals, a Liberty Corner, N.J., specialty pharma that withdrew a planned $300 million IPO in 2005, is going to try again, only with more at stake. The company filed to raise as much as $400 million in an offering, despite the fact that it is on track to lose more than $100 million this year, which would be the third time in four years it has done so.

In the first six months of this year, Reliant reported a net loss to common shareholders of $56.4 million on revenue of $230 million. That net loss would have been only $21.8 million but for preferred-share dividends of $34.6 million in the half. Reliant sells a variety of unrelated second-hand drugs for cardiovascular problems.

Interestingly enough, Reliant made its last charge at the public markets with the famed Ernest Mario at the helm. Mario jumped from Reliant just last week, and is now CEO of the little-known Capnia (see our coverage here).

Nanosphere aims for outsized $100M IPO — Nanosphere, a Northbrook, Ill., developer of nucleic-acid and protein detection and diagnostic systems, filed to raise as much as $100 million in an IPO. As of March 31, the company had an accumulated deficit of $112.6 million. Earlier this year, it submitted its Verigene molecular-diagnostic system to the FDA for approval; Nanosphere intends to market the device to hospital laboratories that currently aren’t equipped to perform such tests in-house.

SurModics snaps up diagnostic-supply company BioFX for up to $22.7M — SurModics, an Eden Prairie, Minn., developer of drug formulations and other biological supplies, agreed to acquire BioFX Laboratories of Owings Mills, Md., for $11.3 million in cash and milestone payments worth up to $11.4 million. The release is here. The acquisition is the second for SurModics this month; it bought out Brookwood Laboraties on Aug. 2 (our coverage is here).

UPDATE (2:37pm PT): Added items on Glide Pharma, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Nanosphere, and SurModics/BioFX Laboratories.

UPDATE REDUX: Over at Pharma’s Cutting Edge, Fred Cohen notes what I didn’t have time to, which is that Ophthotech essentially amounts to a do-over for the architects of Eyetech’s failure. Check it out.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Horizon Therapeutics, a biotech that aims to combine existing generic drugs to fight pain, raised $30 million in a third funding round. The company’s lead drug candidate, known only as HZT-501, is a “proprietary” combination of the generic drugs ibuprofen and famotidine, the latter of which is better known by its brand name Pepcid. It’s aimed at providing pain relief without gastrointestinal discomfort or injury, which is the same claim made by Cox-2 inhibitors such as Merck’s withdrawn pain drug Vioxx.

Horizon’s basic idea, which is both interesting and risky, is that packaging together existing drugs like these into a single pill may ameliorate side effects. Famotidine, for instance, suppresses the production of stomach acid, so by combining it with ibuprofen, Horizon hopes to reduce the likelihood of ibuprofen-related ulcers.

That’s the interesting part. The risky part is that patients and their doctors can usually just take the existing generic drugs together for the the same effect. Horizon hopes that its combination pill will prove more convenient for patients than the separate drugs. Would-be competitors to HZT-501, for instance, have different dosing schedules — two to three times a day for ibuprofen, but only once or twice a day for famotidine. (Hat tip to Lou Bock, a VC at Scale Venture Partners, who described Horizon’s strategy in the course of a longer conversation nearly two weeks ago.)

Will that be enough for Horizon to fend off generic competition? It’s hard to say, but Horizon’s backers clearly want to believe it will be. The latest round was led by Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, who was joined by existing investors Scale Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Pequot Ventures.

Horizon has previously raised $21 million in equity funding. The company said the latest round will allow it to push HZT-501 through its current late-stage trials and potentially into an approval filing with the FDA, while also advancing a second drug candidate, HZT-602, into late-stage trials. HZT-602 combines another painkiller, naproxen, with famotidine. Naproxen is better known by its over-the-counter name Aleve.

Roxro Pharmaceuticals, a Menlo Park, Calif., specialty pharmaceutical company focused on pain drugs, raised $42.7 million in a second funding round. The company’s release is here (PDF).

Founded in 1999, Roxro acquires discarded or failed drugs from other companies and pushes them through clinical development. Although I keep thinking the bloom has come off this particular trend, investors apparently can’t get enough of the strategy, at least to judge by this sizable round. The company’s lead candidate is ROX-888, a painkiller designed to be taken via an intranasal spray, which is currently in late-stage trials. The company plans to file for FDA approval of the drug in the first half of next year.

The round was led by Prospect Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures, joined by Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners.

Portola Pharmaceuticals, a South San Francisco, Calif., biotech aiming to develop treatments for blood clots and other heart-related problems, raised $70 million in a third round of financing dominated by late-stage and public-market investors.

Among new investors in the round were Brookside Capital; AllianceBernstein; Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan; Goldman Sachs, T. Rowe Price, IBTM and CIDC. They were joined by existing investors Abingworth, Alta Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Frazier
Healthcare Ventures, MPM Capital, Prospect Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Portola plans to use the funding for additional clinical trials of its two leading drug candidates, both experimental blood thinners targeting different blood proteins that promote coagulation. PRT054021, an oral molecule that inhibits Factor Xa, showed promising signs in a recent mid-stage human test, and will advance into further clinical trials. Meanwhile, PRT060128, which prevents blood platelets from aggregating, has completed early trials and should move into mid-stage testing by the second half of 2007. Should they receive regulatory approval, both compounds would compete with blood thinners already on the market.

Portola aims to go public and may do so as early as next year, the company’s chief financial officer, Mardi Dier, told VentureWire (subscription required).