Funding roundup - week ending 10/22/10

Games and games, social social social (what's hot in Silicon Valley and getting funded)

Aurora Feint raised $3 million from Intel Capital and The9, bringing the mobile gaming company's total funding to $12 million. Japan's DeNA, which recently acquired ngmoco, also counts itself among Aurora Feint's investors. The Burlingame, CA-based startup is best known for creating OpenFeint, a mobile social network with games provided for both iPhone and Android.

Buddy Media, provider of a Facebook page management service for businesses and brands, raised a $23 million Series C round, led by Institutional Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners, and Bay Partners. Founded in 2007, the digital media company has raised over $33 million to date. The company's social media marketing package is focused almost exclusively on Facebook right now.

CafeBots closed a $5 million first round of funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The startup is the first to be funded by Kleiner’s just-launched $250 million sFund for social apps built on the Facebook Platform. Still in stealth, CafeBots isn't saying much about its service except that it has something to do with "Friend Relationship Management," which sounds a lot like the more-oft seen "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM).

Causes, a community that makes it easier to encourage friends to donate to charities, secured a $9 million Series C round, led by New Enterprise Associates, with paricipation from Founders Fund, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Karl Jacob, Keith Rabois, and Dustin Moscovitz. Founded in 2007 by former Facebook president and Napster co-founder Sean Parker and grassroots organizer Joe Green, the Berkeley-based startup has raised $16 million to date.

Evernote, an application for saving ideas, multimedia, and more, raised a $20 million Series C funding round, led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Morgenthaler Ventures, Troika Dialog, and DOCOMO Capital. This round follows up on an $11 million round from last year. Evernote counts 4.7 million users on its service.

Gamersband, a geo-social network for gamers, raised a $500,000 Series A funding round, led by Petit Poucet, which has invested in student-run companies like Leaf Supply, Monsav.com and Easy Life Pack. Just launched in September, the French-based social network helps gamers find other locals to play with. The site, though still in beta, lets anyone sign up and has already accrued 4,000 testers.

Goby, a search engine for finding things to do locally, raised $2.5 million in Series A funding from Flybridge Capital Partners and Kepha Partners, bringing the company’s total funding to $7.5 million. The Boston, MA-based company lines up three search fields on its site--What would you like to do?, Where?, and When?--seeking to deliver hyper-local and specific results for things to do in your area. The site sees 500,000 unique monthly users and 500,000 mobile users on iOS and Android.

Poptent, a social network for video creators formerly known as XLNTads, raised a $3 million Series A round of funding, led by by MK Capital partner Yair Landau. The company also named board member Andy Jedynak as the company's new CEO.The Los Angeles-based community is a place for video creators to build and display their portfolio, collaborate with other creators and actors, and make commercials for advertisers and brands.

Social shopping site ShopSocially secured a $1.1 million Series A round, led by Valhalla Partners with participation from angel investors Raman Khanna, Ashish Gupta, and Dharmesh Thakker. The service lets users ask friends in their network shopping-related questions and share recent purchases in a real-time feed. Users can easily start using the site through Facebook Connect.

StockTwits, a real-time community-powered site for investment information, secured a $4 million venture round from existing investors the Foundry Group and True Ventures. The site has raised $8.6 million to date. Just a week ago, StockTwits launched an iPhone app that brings in the main site functionality, stock charts, and financial news.

Unsubscribe.com secured a $2.1 million Series A round, led by Charles Rivers Ventures with participation from Ron Conway’s SV Angel, First Round Capital, DFJ Frontier, and angels Matt Coffin, Tim Ferriss, and Matt Brezina. The service helps users unsubscribe from marketing lists via a downloadable email extension that adds an “unsubscribe” button to every email. The Santa Monica, CA-startup was founded just this past May