Silicon Valley Wire

Menlo Park-Based Redpoint Ventures Closes New $400 Million Fund

Menlo Park, Calif. -- Redpoint Ventures, a Menlo Park-based venture capital firm focused on the technology sector, said on Tuesday that it has closed a new $400 million fund, known as Redpoint IV. The early-stage fund will be used to invest in the social and mobile Internet, cloud computing and clean technology spaces. Redpoint was an early investor in companies such as MySpace, Netflix, TiVo, and Juniper. Founded in 1999, the firm currently has over $2 billion under management.
http://www.redpoint.com
http://www.redpoint.com/news/portfolio/redpoint-ventures-forms-400-million-fund-for-social-and-mobile-internet-cloud-computing-and-clean-technology/

Google to Add 'Status Updates', Other Social Features to Gmail

Mountain View, Calif. -- Google plans to add new social features to its Gmail service that include the ability to share "status updates" and recent activity on third-party services with contacts, The Wall Street Journal reported. Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper said that the features are expected to be introduced as soon as this week. The Mountain View-based company reportedly hopes to bring Gmail's 176 million users some of the same features they are accustomed to seeing on sites like Facebook, which recently passed 400 million users. "It might look like a minor feature advance, but this is another blow in the war against Facebook," Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at technology consultancy Altimeter Group, told The New York Times.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703630404575053480962942848.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/technology/companies/09social.html

S.F.-Based Fotomoto Raises Funding for Self-Service Photo Monetization

San Francisco -- Fotomoto, a San Francisco-based service that lets photographers monetize their photos through contacts with web publishers, has raised $623,000 in funding, TechCrunch reported. Investors include Amidzad Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, BookRenter CEO Mehdi Maghsoodnia and SGN founder Shervin Pishevar. Launched in May 2009, Fotomoto now counts 2,800 web site publishing partners, including Mirror.co.uk, and features over 610,000 photos.
http://www.fotomoto.com
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/09/fotomoto

Obama Administration Launches Open Government Dashboard

Washington, DC -- Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra and CIO Vivek Kundra on Tuesday unveiled the Open Government Dashboard, a new web page designed to let visitors visually track the progress of federal agencies as they strive to meet the Obama administration's deadlines on government transparency. The site evaluates the progress of agencies in their efforts to provide better access to information while giving the public more influence on key decisions -- something Obama has made a priority since taking office. The administration also has named 34 members to its newly formed Open Government Working Group, which will help evaluate the open government plans of individual agencies.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/around
http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive/working-group
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/02/09/evolving-open-government-dashboard-with-you

Survey: Technology CFOs Increasingly Optimistic About Prospects

San Francisco -- More than two-thirds of CFOs at U.S. technology companies expect an increase in sales revenue in 2010, according to a new study by financial advisory firm BDO. That's up from just 30% who anticipated an increase last year. And in a dramatic shift from previous years, that vast majority (81%) of those interviewed expect merger and acquisition activity in the tech sector to increase this year -- up from 43% in 2009. "Technology CFOs are cautiously optimistic about the economy and growth in the sector this year, but they are still planning on conservative, managed growth for 2010," said Douglas Sirotta, a partner in the Technology Practice at BDO. "For the most part, the technology industry will continue to focus on streamlined operations, cost-cutting and innovation wherever possible.  Companies that are strong and looking to grow, however, can afford to be opportunistic in this market."
http://www.bdo.com/news/pr/1256

Oracle to Acquire Oakland-Based AmberPoint

Redwood Shores, Calif. -- Oracle, the Redwood Shores-based maker of back-office business software, said on Monday that it will acquire AmberPoint, an Oakland-based maker of service-oriented architecture (SOA) management software. Financial terms of the deal, expected to close by mid-year, were not disclosed. AmberPoint's software is designed to help clients diagnose and fix issues in application performance and business transactions. Oracle said that it will add AmberPoint's products to its Fusion Middleware SOA suite.
http://www.amberpoint.com/
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/048842

Areva to Acquire Mountain View-Based Solar Firm Ausra

Mountain View, Calif. -- French green energy company Areva said on Monday that it  will acquire Mountain View-based Ausra, a developer of large-scale solar thermal energy systems. Financial terms of the deal, expected to close in the next few months, were not disclosed. Areva said that the acquisition will launch its new global solar energy business. Ausra, which raised $25.5 million in equity funding last April from investors including Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, makes solar concentrators designed to boil water with focused sunlight, generating high-pressure steam that drives conventional turbine generators. The company also is developing thermal energy storage systems that will allow solar electric power to be generated on demand. The business will continue to operate out of Mountain View, led by current CEO Robert Fishman.
http://www.ausra.com/ 
http://www.areva.com
http://www.ausra.com/news/releases/100208.html

New Free Text Service Aiming to Reduce Infant Mortality Rates

Alexandria, Va. -- Hoping to reduce rising infant mortality rates, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB), working with several corporate and government partners, on Monday launched a free mobile service providing timely health information to pregnant women and new moms. The service, called Text4bab, allows women to text BABY to 511411, then receive three free texts each week timed to their due date. The messages focus on a variety of topics, such as preventing birth defects, immunization, nutrition and mental health. They also connect underserved women to resources involving prenatal and infant care. Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra helped launch the service, which is being supported by corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, WellPoint, Pfizer and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. More than a dozen wireless carriers are distributing the texts to recipients at no charge. The HMHB said that the service can have a substantial impact, since texting is especially prevalent among women of childbearing age and minority populations who face higher infant mortality rates.
http://text4baby.org/
http://www.hmhb.org/text4babypr.html

Report: AOL Working with Four Bidders on Sale of ICQ

New York -- AOL is in serious negotiations with four bidders to sell its ICQ instant messaging service, AllThingsD reported on Monday. Citing sources close to the situation, the blog said that the company is discussing a price around $200 million for the service, which is most popular with Internet users in Germany and Russia. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that AOL was in talks with Russia's Digital Sky Technologies about a potential sale. AOL originally paid $287 million, plus another $120 million in earn-outs, to purchase the service from Israel's Mirabilis in 1998.
http://www.icq.com/
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100208/the-bids-are-in-for-aols-sale-of-icq-its-down-to-a-u-n-of-four-buyers/

Facebook Dumps Microsoft for Display Ads; Expands Search Deal

Palo Alto, Calif. -- Microsoft said that it will no longer sell display ads on Facebook, while at the same time expanding its search advertising partnership with the Palo Alto-based online social network. Facebook already had assumed responsibility for selling its own display ads in a number of foreign markets. "Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy," Jon Tinter, general manager of Bing at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. Under the expanded search partnership, Facebook will provide "full access to great Bing features beyond a set of links, including richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions." Bing will now also power search on all of Facebook's properties worldwide, instead of just in the U.S.
http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2010/02/05/enhanced-cooperation-with-facebook-on-search.aspx

Sunnyvale-Based 4Home Secures $4.3 Million in New Funding Round

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- 4Home, a Sunnyvale-based developer of software that enables users to remotely monitor and control devices in their homes, has raised $4.3 million in a new round of equity funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Identities of the investors were not disclosed. The company's platform can be used by hardware vendors and service providers to allow their customers to remotely monitor their home, get web-based TV content, track their home energy usage and control appliances from either the Internet or mobile phones. 4Home was founded in 2006 by CEO Leon Hounshell, who previously led the operations and development teams at Nearmedia, and CTO Jim Hunter, who founded Nearmedia. The company now has raised more than $9 million, all told.
http://www.4home.com
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1448019/000144801910000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

Kwedit Lands $3M for Virtual Goods Payment Services

Mountain View, Calif. -- Kwedit, a Mountain View-based developer of new payment services for digital content and virtual goods, said that it has raised $3 million in its first round of funding. Participants included True Ventures, Kapor Capital, Maples Investments, Endeavor Partners, Fenwick and West and angel investors. Founded in 2009, Moun Kwedit sells pre-paid cards at 7-Eleven stores that contain credits, which can be redeemed for virtual goods within online games. Another service, Kwedit Promise, functions more like Bill Me Later, allowing users to obtain virtual goods immediately in exchange for promises to pay for them later without using plastic. Each user is assigned a Kwedit Limit, a spending limit established by publishers and modified by previous payment histories. "Most teenagers and the 25% of American households that do not have a credit or debit card… have been locked out of the exploding virtual goods markets," said Danny Shader, the company's CEO. "With Kwedit, those consumers can safely participate in the digital content revolution." Kwedit-based payments are currently supported on more than 100 games.
http://www.kwedit.com
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kwedit-inc-launches-new-payment-services-for-digital-content-and-virtual-goods-83536352.html

S.F.-Based Scrapblog Raises $2.5 Million in Funding

San Francisco -- Scrapblog, the San Francisco-based developer of an online service that lets users upload photos and create web-based scrapbooks, has raised $2.5 million in a new round of funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The round included the sale of both equity and notes. Though specific investors were not named, previous backers include Longworth Venture Partners and Steamboat Ventures. Founded in 2006, Scrapblog now counts more than 2 million registered users, who have created more than 4.4 million Scrapblogs.
http://www.scrapblog.com
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1387860/000138786010000004/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

WSJ: AOL Looking to Bolster Presence in Silicon Valley

Mountain View, Calif. -- Looking to re-establish itself as a technology innovator, AOL is bolstering its presence in Silicon Valley, with plans to as much as double its area workforce of 300 by year's end, the Wall Street Journal reported. The New York-based company, which operates a campus in Mountain View, is looking to hire in areas such as sales and engineering, even after recently cutting about a third of its workforce. The move is part of an effort to find more solid financial footing following AOL's December spin-off from Time Warner. The company on Wednesday posted a fourth-quarter profit of $1.4 million, but also saw its ad revenue slip 8%. After one time employing as many as 2,500 in Mountain View, AOL recently began its renewed push in the area by hiring former Yahoo executive Brad Garlinghouse to run its local operations. "AOL is reinvesting in what has been, during my professional life, the center of gravity for innovation on the Internet," Garlinghouse told the Journal. Part of the company's plan will be to invest in local start-ups through a new investment arm.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575017961980893710.html?mod=rss_Technology&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

San Mateo-Based SuccessFactors to Acquire Inform Business Impact

San Mateo, Calif. -- SuccessFactors, a San Mateo-based developer of business execution software, said on Thursday that it will acquire Australia-based Inform Business Impact, a maker of analytics and workforce planning tools. Under the deal, expected to close after mid-year, SuccessFactors will pay $25.5 million in cash and approximately $15 million in stock for Inform, with the possibility of additional future payments based on growth targets. Inform boasts more than 130 clients, including Comcast, BHP Billiton, Starbucks, Nike and ANZ Bank. "This acquisition allows us to provide something none of our competitors can -- software specialized for business execution decisions based on people information that has a direct impact on how a company performs," said said Lars Dalgaard, the founder and CEO of SuccessFactors.
http://informimpact.com
http://www.successfactors.com
http://www.successfactors.com/press-releases/detail/?id=1383404