What you need to know - 07/12/11

Early-stage funds down, late-stage funds up; Tripping.com raises round for cultural Airbnb

The creator of Shortmail, 410 Labs, closed $750,000 in Series A funding from True Ventures, 500 Startups, Fortify Ventures, the Maryland Venture Fund. Additionally, several angel investors and entrepreneurs participated.

 Social commerce network Lockerz acquired social sharing platform AddToAny.

Early-stage venture fundraising is slowly decreasing, while later-stage funds performed stronger than ever in the first half of 2011.

Ignite Game Technologies raised a $7.5 million Series B to develop racing games.

A study by the University of Missouri seems to suggest that Apple iPad users don’t get tired of the tablet.  In fact, user satisfaction actually increases the longer a person uses the device.

Mobile advertising startup MoPub raised a $6.5 million Series A investment led by Accel Partners and joined by co-investor Harrison Metal Capital.

Mobile entertainment studio skyrockit, raised $2.6 million led by investor Intel Capital with participation from Asuka DBJ Partners, and individual investor Mark Kingdon.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project released a study that found that not only does a full one-third (35%) of American adults now own smartphones, but that 25% of smartphone owners now use their phones to access the Internet more often than their PCs.

Social travel site Tripping.com closed $450,000 of a planned $1 million seed investment round led by Quest Venture Partners (QVP) with participation expected from other “micro-VC” firms and super angels.

Zettaset, formerly GOTO Metrics, closed a $3 million Series A round led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Epic Ventures. Additionally, the company announced its relaunch under the new name Zettaset.