Visa Places Bet on New Approach to Payments With Rare Investment in TrialPay

Visa, Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and others are pouring $40 million into TrialPay, which helps companies like Facebook, Gap and Fandango increase sales through the use of incentives.
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Wealthfront Finally Launches, Aimed at Silicon Valley’s “Richie Rich” Newbies

It’s a financial planning tool aimed at geeks.
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Birst: When the Cloud Isn’t Always in the Cloud

Birst, a business intelligence start-up, offers software that runs the same on premise as it does in the cloud, but for a very good reason.
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Lockerz Nearing Closure on $45 Million Round From Live Nation, Others

Seattle-based Lockerz, an e-commerce company trying to build a rewards-based program for teens, is close to securing a third round of capital totaling $45 million.
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Exclusive: Wal-Mart Paid $300 Million-Plus for Kosmix

According to sources close to the situation, retail giant Wal-mart paid just over $300 million in cash for Kosmix, an acquisition announced earlier today. That’s a big price for the six-year-old Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which has built a social media platform that organizes content by topic and had raised $55 million from a large group of Silicon Valley venture firms.

Wal-Mart Acquires Kosmix to Move Into Social and Mobile

Wal-Mart is buying Kosmix, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that has built a social media platform that organizes content by topic.

News Byte

Chip Start-Up Tabula Raises $108 Million From Crosslink, DAG Ventures

A Silicon Valley semiconductor start-up has raised one of the biggest funding rounds to come to that sector in years. The $108 million investment in Tabula Inc. is also notable because the company is targeting a market niche–programmable chips–that has attracted a number of other entrants that subsequently went out of business. The latest investment in Tabula brings the total raised by the company to $214 million. The investment was led by Crosslink Capital and DAG Ventures; existing investors include Benchmark, Balderton Capital, Greylock Partners, Integral Capital Partners and New Enterprise Associates.

StumbleUpon's Second Wind Continues as It Raises $17M

StumbleUpon, the content discovery service, has raised $17 million in new funding, according to sources close to the company.

Cooliris Raises $9.6M, Gets Social With Mobile Photo-Sharing App

Cooliris, which makes tools to help people consume media on the Web and various devices, is changing focus with a new flagship product that’s about sharing photos rather than browsing.

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Raptr Snags $15 Million in Capital for Social Gaming Platform

Raptr, which is building a social gaming platform that lets players track achievements and connect to friends on gaming consoles, has raised $15 million in capital. The round was led by DAG Ventures, with Tenaya Capital and Accel Partners also participating. In total, the Mountain View, Calif. company has raised $27 million. Raptr claims it is adding 750,000 new users a month and has a current total of six million.

OpenX Closes $10 Million Round

Friendster: The Orkut of Asia