Funding roundup - week ending 02/04/11

Instagram raises $7 million from Benchmark Capital; Path secures $8.7 million from Kleiner, Index

Early-stage

Hipmunk, a new flight search service that wants to lessen the pain of traveling, raised a $4.2 million round of funding led by Ignition Partners with participation from experts in the online travel space.

Instagram, a filtered photo sharing app, raised a $7 million round led by Matt Cohler from Benchmark Capital with participation from prominent investors.

Cross-platform media tracking service MediaMorph raised $2 million, bringing its total raised to $3.5 million. The investors were not disclosed.

Needle, a new company that wants to help integrate chat into commerce sites, has raised $1.2 million of a planned $2 million round, according to an SEC filing.

Path, the social network for close friends and family, closed an $8.65 million Series A round of financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures, with participation from new investor Digital Garage Japan and previous investor First Round Capital.

Music subscription service Rdio raised a $17.5 million round of financing from new investor Mangrove Capital Partners with participation from existing investors Janus Friis (Rdio co-founder), Atomico and Skype.

RentJuice, a platform that connects brokers and agents with landlords and property managers, closed a $6.2 million round of funding led by Highland Capital Partners, with continued participation from Tim Draper, Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, who led the company’s seed financing.

Storify, a website that allows users to create online narratives out of a compilation of their favorite tweets, videos, and pictures, secured $2 million in financing from Khosla Ventures.

Late-stage

Subscription billing solution Aria Systems closed a $20 million Series C round led by InterWest Partners, with help from previous investors Hummer-Winblad and Venrock.  An unnamed “large, global technology firm” also contributed an undisclosed amount to the round, bringing Aria’s total funds raised to $34 million.

LibreDigital, a company that specializes in aggregating and promoting digital content, secured $4 million in a financing round led by existing investors.

China’s largest online TV service, PPLive, raised $250 million from Softbank Corporation.

Seesmic, a company that specializes in apps developed to allow businesses to monitor user interaction with their brands on social networks, raised a $4 million investment from Salesforce.com and Softbank Holdings.