Today’s funding announcements include companies that work with lists, ads and Wi-Fi:

Ranker raises $1.4M for user-generated rankings: The list aggregation company has raised a first round of founding led by Tim Draper at Draper Associates/DFJ with participation from Rincon Venture Partners, Newport Coast Investments and others. Based in Los Angeles, the startup allows site visitors to vote on topics, which Ranker then combines into rankings. The company previously raised two rounds of seed funding and says it had 1.6M unique monthly visitors in March.

Rocket Fuel brings in $6.6M for ad optimization: The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company has raised a third round of funding led by Northgate Capital with participation from Mohr Davidow Ventures, Labrador Capital Fund, Nokia Growth Partners and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, TechCrunch reports. The startup, which last raised $10M in September, helps marketers increase ROI by determining the best place for display ads.

Adap.tv lands $20M for video advertising service: The San Mateo, Calif.-based company has raised a new round of funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Gemini Israel Funds, Redpoint Ventures and Spark Capital. The service, which launched in February 2010, connects advertisers with publishers looking to monetize their online video content.

Aerohive grabs $25M for controller-less Wi-Fi solutions: The wireless LAN company has raised a fourth round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Northern Light Venture Capital. Founded in 2006, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has raised more than $70M in funding to date and provides enterprise and medium-sized companies with cloud-enabled Wi-Fi and routing solutions.

Companies: Adap.tv, Aerohive, Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ, Draper Associates, Gemini Israel Funds, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Labrador Capital Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Newport Coast Investments, Nokia Growth Partners, Northern Light Venture Capital, Northgate Capital, Ranker, Redpoint Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Rocket Fuel, Spark Capital, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Almost exactly a year ago, if you happened to be walking down East 67th Street toward Fifth Avenue, you probably stopped to peer through the window of a certain $49 million townhouse. Specifically the one belonging to Phil Falcone. There, a piano playing pig name Wilbur was pulling out all the stops (“Memories” from Cats, his infamous Bette Midler), in celebration of his boss making AR Magazine‘s annual list of the 25 highest paid managers, having taken home $825 million in 2009. The good spirits and the gin were running high that night and the party didn’t stop ’til the early hours of the morning. This year, things will be different. The lights will be dimmed and Wilbur will be in his room, digging out the cocktail napkin with the number of the hedge fund manager he’d met last summer in Connecticut. He told himself he wasn’t going to do anything with it but…things have changed.

This year, Phil didn’t even crack the top 25, let alone the top ten. Here are the guys whose paychecks ranked them among the best in 2009, and whose 2010 comp may mean household staff looking for greener pastures in the coming weeks:

* John Arnold (Centaurus Energy)
* Phil Falcone (Harbinger Capital Partners)
* Louis Bacon (Moore Capital)
* Andreas Halvorsen (Viking Capital)
* Alan Howard (Brevan Howard)
* O. Francis Biondi Jr./Brian J. Higgins (King Street Capital)

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

FISAM Capital is no longer.

Reuters’ Matthew Goldstein reports that the tech-focused fund has been forced to close up shop after a single large investor redeemed its money.

Stefan Frank, a former portfolio manager with Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, founded FISAM in November 2009. The fund managed a little under $100 million, and after Frank received the redemption request he found it difficult to keep trading, these sources said.

Apparently the firm saw a 6 percent gain since inception, meaning the SEC, which yesterday announced plans to cavity search anyone beating the market by 3 percent, will be giving them a pass.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Today’s funding announcements including one company offering sales data and two companies offering local deals:

InsideView brings in $12M for sales intelligence: The developer of a tool for sales professionals has raised a third round of funding led by Foundation Capital with participation from Emergence Capital Partners, Rembrandt Venture Partners and Greenhouse Capital Partners. Based in San Francisco, the company provides more than 75,000 sales professionals with aggregate data from news, editorial and social media sites. InsideView recently launched the Social Selling University, a program that teaches sales people how to use social media to increase sales.

DealsGoRound grabs angel funding for daily deals exchange: The secondary marketplace for daily deals from sites like Groupon and Living Social has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding. The company, which is based in Chicago and was founded in early 2010, also launched out of beta today. DealsGoRound currently facilitates resales and exchanges of daily deals in more than 50 U.S. cities.

Offline Labs raises $1M for members-only site: The company founded by former Slide employees has raised a round of seed funding from a long list of investors including Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Polaris Ventures and General Catalyst Partners. Based in San Francisco, the company is launching Sōsh, its first product, soon. Though details are yet to be released, the company says the product will bring memorable activities to members through events and deals.

SocialVibe lands $20M for digital ads: The Los Angeles-based startup has raised a fourth round of funding led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures and Pinnacle Ventures. The company, which works with big-name advertisers including Coke, Disney and McDonalds, delivers ads by engaging with consumers through networks like Zynga and rewarding them for their interactions.

Companies: DealsGoRound, Emergence Capital Partners, Foundation Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Greenhouse Capital Partners, Groupon, InsideView, Jafco Ventuers, Living Social, Norwest Venture Partners, Offline Labs, Pinnacle Ventures, Polaris Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, SocialVibe

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Bain Capital Ventures has led an $8.3M investment round in Clovr Media, which has built the first platform that converts banner, text-link, video, or mobile ads into card linked offers.

The company, which aims to pioneer “Loyalty 2.0,” or the next generation of consumer loyalty programs, gives advertisers the ability to offer special discounts to consumers without requiring any payment up front or paper coupons from users. The company works with financial institutions to present offers from select brands to customers via credit and debit cards. The benefit to advertisers is that they can track and measure clicks and spending.

Says Jeffrey Glass, Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures, “Our investment in Clovr reflects our confidence that the card linked offer is the next step in the evolution of digital coupons and loyalty programs. This platform will eliminate the need for paper coupons and elevate the personalization of savings for every participating consumer.”

Competitors in the space include Offermatic, which raised $4.5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Ron Conway, Omar Hamoui and others.

The funding round was led by Jeffrey Glass of Bain Capital Ventures. Clovr Media’s seed round investors Kepha Partners and Common Angels also participated in this round, as well as angel investor Mark Wright. Based in Waltham, Mass, the company had previously raised $1.5M.

Photo via bfishadow on Flickr

Tags: consumer loyalty, deals, discounts, Loyalty 2.0

Companies: Bain Capital Ventures, Clovr Media

People: Jeffrey Glass

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Like most of you, we’ve come to expect a lot of from the ‘top emerging markets fund of 2010′ and its fearless leader. So we’re being admittedly a bit hard on Ping Capital gang about a less than stellar February when, year to date, they’re beating many a manager. Still, though, if it wasn’t previously clear, we’re looking for fireworks month in and month out, and will support whatever methods it takes to get there.

Ping Exceptional Value Fund
February 2011: -0.59%
YTD: 6.69%

Earlier: Ping Capital January 2011

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Reuters’s Bill Rigby today offers a summation of some selling of Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) stock by funds in Q4, with Lone Pine Capital and Maverick Capital both cutting their stakes in the shares. Rigby describes a “bevy” of top managers cutting their stakes in the duo, citing a Thomson Reuters survey of federal filings.

As for reasons why, Rigby cites one fund manager, Patrick Becker of Becker Capital, who worries Apple’s growth has “got to slow going forward,” because “Apple is a company that has to come up with hit after hit after hit, every 12 to 18 months, but once you do the iPhone on Verizon, what’s the next thing past this?”

Again, all of that Q4. What these managers are doing now is another question.

Apple shares today are down $8.13, or 2.3%, at $351.87, while Google shares are down $12.28, or 2%, at $588.34.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Venture capital firm Greylock Partners said today it would expand an early-stage fund to $1 billion and start a growth fund to usher in the next phase of its investment strategy.

The new funds show that while angel investors like Chris Sacca and Mike Maples have managed to take on impressive stakes by betting on startups like Twitter when they’re still quite young, the conventional venture-capital model as practiced by Greylock (offices pictured, left) and a few other elite firms is still going strong.

While venture-capital fundraising last year was at a record low since 2003, according to the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters, several firms have been surging forward to raise large funds. Accel is in the process of raising $2 billion for four different funds in the U.S. and China. Sequoia Capital recently raised $1.3 billion for investments in Silicon Valley and Chinese companies. In November, Andreesen Horowitz confirmed they had raised a $650 million fund.

The firm said the expansion capital for its early-stage fund, Greylock XIII, was raised from existing limited partners and was oversubscribed. The company initially closed $575 million for the fund in November 2009. So far, that fund has backed startups like Airbnb, One Kings Lane, Pure Storage, Rally Software and Shopkick.

The new growth fund, Greylock Growth, is the next phase of the company’s plans to executive a later-stage investment strategy, and it has been working particularly hard to mastermind social web opportunities. Since Greylock’s initial Facebook investment in early 2006, approximately 40 percent of the firm’s dollars have gone toward later stage companies, the firm said. The growth fund will be focused on later-stage financings in “breakout consumer Internet and enterprise companies,” and will invest $25 million to $200 million at a time.

The company’s growth investments will be aimed as helping companies “in the ‘winner’s circle’ maintain their dominant positions while they continue to grow and expand,” says partner David Sze, who’s leading the growth initiative.

In addition to the Facebook investment, Greylock owns 15.8 percent of LinkedIn and backs Groupon, Redfin, Constant Contact, Pandora and Zipcar (the latter two are filing to go public). The firm also recently brought on new partner Frank Slootman, former CEO of enterprise-storage provider Data Domain that saw a handsome $2.1 billion exit. Slootman was brought on board in part to offer his operational experience to advise to hot enterprise companies who, due to oversubscribed rounds, have needed to become more selective about which venture capital firms they partner with.

Since Greylock’s initial Facebook investment in early 2006, approximately 40% of the firm’s dollars have gone toward later stage companies. This portfolio includes companies such as Constant Contact, Groupon, Pandora, Redfin and Zipcar. Pandora and Zipcar have both filed to go public.

The company also has completed 20 seed-stage investments since its discovery fund was launched in September, with $25,000 to $500,000 investments.

[Top image via Google Street View]

Tags: enterprise, social web, Venture Capital

Companies: Accel Partners, Airbnb, Andreesen Horowitz, Constant Contact, Data Domain, Facebook, Greylock Partners, Groupon, linkedin, One Kings Lane, Pandora, Pure Storage, Rally Software, Redin, Sequoia Capital, Shopkick, Zipcar

People: David Sze

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Shares of Juniper Networks (JNPR) are down 6 cents at $43.94 after the company late yesterday said it planned to offer $1 billion in debt due 2016, 2021, and 2041, at coupons from 3.1% to 5.95%.

In a press release, Juniper said the bonds will be used to fund general corporate purposes including working capital but also acquisitions.

Barclays Capital, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are underwriters.

The filings for the individual tranches can be found here, here, and here, the overall prospectus here, and the press release here.

According to its 10-K filed February 25th, Juniper ended last year with $1.8 billion in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet and no long-term debt.

The company’s financial analyst day briefing is coming up on Thursday. In a note to clients this morning previewing the event, RBC Capital analyst Mark Sue reiterated an Outperform rating and raised his price target to $46 from $39.

Sue raised his EPS estimate for this year to $1.95 from $1.85, based on an expectation the company is “proactively expanding its addressable market.” He also raised his revenue estimate to $5.73 billion from a prior $5.62 billion.

He sees Juniper expanding into data center infrastructure and also the infrastructure market for wireless carriers, which could be $5 billion in addressable market size, combined, in the next few years, he writes.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Today’s funding announcements include one company that brings real people into a virtual world and another that brings them into stores:

Funium raises $1.2M for Facebook game with real-life characters: The game developer has raised angel funding to develop its first Facebook game called Family Village, which allows users to build a virtual community based on their real family tree. Based in San Francisco, the startup plans to release the game in mid-2011 to help users discover facts about extended family members.

SnapRetail brings in $6M for digital marketing system: The Pittsburgh-based software company has raised a first round of funding led by Adams Capital Management, an investment firm also based in Pittsburgh. The company helps independent retailers reach customers through social media and digital marketing, helping to bring new customers into both online and brick and mortar stores.

ProspX grabs $8M for insurance software: The Austin-based software developer has raised a second round of funding led by Adams Capital Management to streamline commercial insurance sales. Co-founded by a veteran of the commercial insurance industry, the company was started in 2005 and connects agents, brokers and carrier partners online.

DynamicOps gets $11M for cloud automation software: The Burlington, Mass.-based company has raised a second round of funding led by Sierra Ventures with participation from Next World Capital. Founded by Credit Suisse in 2008, the company helps businesses deploy IT services through its private cloud automation software.

Companies: Adams Capital Management, Credit Suisse, DynamicOps, Funium, Next World Capital, ProspX, Sierra Ventures, SnapRetail

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals