What you need to know - 08/18/11

Amazon is the undisputed king of retail; Zynga may have snapped up a New York game studio

Amazon is the indomitable king of retail—both online and off. One in five Internet users worldwide visited an Amazon site in the month of June, making Amazon the most visited retail property on the Web with 282 million visitors.

Birchbox, which provides access to a high-end beauty subscription, closed a $10.5 million Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners.

drchrono closed an additional $650,000 in seed funding from prominent startup investor Yuri Milner, founder of DST Global, and venture capital firm General Catalyst.

As of yesterday, rumor had it that Kim Kardashian's ludicrously over-the-top wedding would be held at the estate of Google Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt in Montecito, California. But new reports have emerged to peg the location at a neighboring Montecito estate: the house of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers co-founder Frank J. Caufield.

QuickMobile, developer of mobile solutions for the meetings and events industries, secured $2.3 million in a combination of debt and equity from angel investors.

Zynga has reportedly acquired New York City mobile social gaming developer Astro Ape Studios, according to the results of some serious social media sleuthing.

China fashion e-tailer Xiu.com raised $100 million worth of joint funds from US private equity fund Warburg Pincus and venture capital KPCB China.