Funding roundup - week ending 01/28/11

Cirtas Systems

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on January 14, 2011

Cirtas solves the challenges associated with storing data in the cloud, making cloud storage work like onsite enterprise storage arrays. Deployed in the data center, its Bluejet Cloud Storage Controllers simplify storage management and vastly reduce data storage TCO, while addressing the long-standing challenges associated with data backup and disaster recovery for medium and large enterprises. Cirtas supports a variety of cloud provider platforms, including Amazon S3, Iron Mountain, EMC Atmos and AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service^SM. Founded in 2008, the company is headquartered in San Jose, California and backed by NEA, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Amazon. For more information, visit www.cirtas.com.

Smaato Inc.

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on March 19, 2007

Smaato provides Ads for Apps – operating the leading mobile advertising optimization platform called SOMA. More than 40,000 app developers and premium publishers have signed up with Smaato to monetize their content in 230+ countries.

SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of 70+ leading ad networks globally to maximize mobile advertising revenues. Through an open API and the widest range of SDKs, SOMA can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.

Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association, Singapore Infocomm Industry (SITF), Singapore IT Federation and the German Digital Media Association BVDW. Smaato received a Top 100 Private Company Award by AlwaysOn Media (2011, 2009 & 2007), is one of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners in the Mobile category (2011), was named a “company to watch in 2010” by Financial Analyst company GP Bullhound and recently was nominated finalist at the EMMA (Effective Mobile Marketing Awards), among other awards.

Smaato Inc. is based in San Francisco, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced International management team. The European headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany and the Asia-Pacific presence of Smaato has been established in Singapore.

Cohuman

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on April 28, 2010

Cohuman is the simplest most powerful way to keep your team in sync. Easily delegate, prioritize and track tasks with all your teams.

It is an intelligent workspace for coordinating people and managing projects. It promotes transparency and accountability in communications allowing teams to get things done more efficiently.

PERFECT INFORMATION 
Cohuman delivers immediate insight into the status of projects, coworkers and the tasks you need to focus on. 
1. We provide unprecedented visibility into a team's collective and individual responsibilities. 
2. Projects and people are presented with lists of tasks that are ranked in order of priority. We utilize metadata to dynamically rank a task's importance relative to the needs of the team.  

BENEFITS 
- Focus: Tasks are organized so people can focus on doing the most important things first. 
- Transparency: Team members have visibility into the shared actions and needs of the group. 
- Accountability: By compelling individual ownership, we reduce business ambiguity. 
- Accessibility: Files, conversations and deadlines are centralized, secure and always accessible. 
- Email Integration: We work seamlessly with email, so those who don't want to login to Cohuman don't need to.  

GOOGLE INTEGRATION
- Attach Google Docs to Cohuman tasks, and we'll handle the permissions
- Sync your tasks to your Google Calendar
- Invite your Google Contacts
- Login and Signup with your Google Account
- Find us in the Google Marketplace and Chrome Store 

The long version of our Story:
The challenge we all face in today’s multitasking world is that we are inundated with emails, tweets, social media statuses, collaboration tool notifications, IM’s, buzzes, waves and more. Submerged somewhere in this digital torrent are the tasks we need to act upon as well as the true status of the things we have shared with, or assigned to, others.  

The truth is, we feel productive when we merely click on what’s unread in our inbox (a textbook Pavlovian response). We feel a sense of accomplishment when we stay abreast of the chatter. All the energy and time we invest in doing these things is creating a false sense of “doing” and eating into the time we have to get stuff done. We’re on a diet of electronic junk food. The day goes by and despite having been connected and collaborative, we’ve accomplished less than we thought. What’s worse, we experience that nagging feeling that we’ve forgotten to do something.

Cohuman is an online application that cuts through this digital clutter and gives you the power to make, share and track tasks with anyone. 

We fundamentally believe that the only way to simplify our lives is to know what our priorities are and to be able to focus on what matters. Cohuman is a social network for all your work and personal tasks. When you share tasks with other people, Cohuman is aware of how all your tasks are related. That’s what Cohuman is – a Task Network. In the same way you keep track of your colleagues and friends via Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, we empower you to get status updates on all the tasks you’re connected to.

Based on an algorithm that takes into account the network value of a task, Cohuman is able to optimize your priorities and those of everyone in your network by assigning each task a score.

Cohuman lets you: 
1. See everything you need to do in one place 
2. Prioritize your day, your week, your life
3. Share tasks with others and follow their status 
4. Trust you are not forgetting to do anything

The market for Cohuman encompasses everyone who is tired of depending on email to coordinate their life or is simply struggling to manage their priorities.