Funding roundup - week ending 10/08/10

Mobile, advertising, banking, music personalization, face-recognition, event registration, and more

Startups in remote and obscure locations, bemoan your location's lack of venture capital firms no longer!

The Foundry Group, a venture capital firm with an early-stage focus that pays no mind to geography, raised a $225 million fund this week. Instead of injecting cash into businesses in the Boulder, CO area, where it's based, The Foundry Group looks to a particular set of themes that its investors find the most promising for the coming years.

Every business backed by a brilliant idea has a shot at raising funds. Here are the companies from the past week that successfully secured new rounds:

Mobile data company Acision raised a $100 million round led by existing investor Access Industries with participation from International Investment and Underwriting and Atlantic Bridge. The UK-based company focuses on the burgeoning mobile industry, whose services could be handling 90 billion text messages yearly by 2015.

Real-time advertising platform AppNexus secured a $50 million Series C round raised by all participants from the previous round--Venrock, Kodiak Venture Partners, and First Round Capital--and new investor Microsoft, a longstanding AppNexus client. Founded in 2007, the New York City-based company has raised about $65 million to date. Though neither company has disclosed how much Microsoft contributed to the round, AppNexus and Microsoft will likely be working closer together than ever before.

URL shortening service Bit.ly raised $10 million in a Series B round led by RRE Ventures with participation from new contributor AOL Ventures and previous investors O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, SV Angel, Founders Fund, Mitch Kapor, and several other angels. Founded in 2008, the New York City-based startup has raised $15 million to date. Anyone who thought URL shortening just a fad can probably put those suspicions to rest. Bit.ly has partnered over 3000 clients, including Amazon (amzn.to), The New York Times (nyti.ms), Pepsi (pep.si), and Foursquare (4sq.com).

ClairMail, developer of mobile banking and payments solutions for financial institutions, secured a $13.8 million late stage round of funding led by Investor Growth Capital (IGC), the wholly owned venture capital arm of Stockholm-based Investor AB with participation from existing investors JAFCO Ventures, Norwest Ventures, and Outlook Ventures. The company has raised $34 million to date. Serving eight of the top 12 North American Banks, ClairMail recently posted a 300% year-over-year increase in revenue for the second quarter in 2010.

The Echo Nest, developer of a search, personalization, and interactive music platform, raised $7 million in funding led by Matrix Partners with participation from previous investor Commonwealth Capital Ventures. Differentiating his company from Pandora, CEO Jim Lucchese says Echo Nest focuses not on business-to-consumer but a business-to-business platform

EcoMom, a provider of eco-friendly products for the family, raised $1.1 million in a Series A round led by Cyan Banister (of Zivity), Dan Gould (of Newroo and Namesake), Scott Banister, Dave McClure, Paige Craig, Sizhao Yang, and David Pell, along with several angels from the Angel List. Since launching back in February, the bootstrapped Los Angeles-based startup has built up an inventory of over 2,000 child and family-related items.

Eventbrite, an online event registration and ticketing site, closed a $20 million Series D round of funding led by DAG Ventures with participation from new contributer Tenaya Capital and Sequoia Capital, previously the company’s sole investor. Founded in 2006, Eventbrite has raised $29.5 million to date. The San Francisco-based startup, which harnesses the power of Facebook Connect APIs, enables users to share events with each other, in turn spreading the word about Eventbrite. CEO Kevin Hartz hopes to use the new funding to expand the company internationally.

SocialShield, provider of parental control software for social networks, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Venrock and U.S. Venture Partners with participation from angels Russell Fradin, Larry Braitman, George Garrick, Craig Sherman and Rick Thompson. Founded in 2009, the San Bruno, CA-based company provides tools for monitoring a child's activity on the social Web, specifically looking out for friend requests from unknown adults and registered sex offenders. Families pay $10/month for the service or $8/month if they sign up for a full year.

TubeMogul, an online video advertising and analytics platform, raised $10 million in equity funding. Since its creation in 2006, the Emeryville, CA-based startup has raised over $6 million from Knight’s Bridge Capital Partners, NetService Ventures, and Trinity Ventures. With more than 150,000 users and clients like HBO, the New York Times, NASA, and the White House, TubeMogul could stand its ground in an arena with tons of competition (Ooyala, Blip.tv).

Viewdle, a face recognition software developer, raised $10 million in a Series B round led by Best Buy Capital, BlackBerry Partners Fund, and Qualcomm with participation from previous investor Anthem Venture Partners. The market for face recognition technology is heating up quite a bit: last week Apple bought Polar Rose and Face.com raised $4.3 million in funding from Russian search giant Yandex. Viewdle, like its competitors, seeks to save users from the time-consuming task of tagging friends and family in photos.