Bitesize Friday: VC Rounds, M&A and Weekend Reading

Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft-Yahoo and maybe a tiny bit of Google/Open Social here and there. Are you getting a bit tired reading about the same companies over and over again. Me neither, but hey, it’s good to mix up your diet a little every now and then.

Below are a few recommended reading links for the weekend:

Entrepreneurship 101:

• Understanding the Digital Savvy Consumer - If you are in web 2.0, your target client is likely ‘digital savvy’. In this 70 page-long report by Scarborough Research you’ll learn to identify the 18 consumer behavior and purchasing patterns.  Who are they? The digital savvy are more likely to be US born Hispanic or Asian men who like to travel and spend money online.

• Guy Kawasaki gives a few pick up lines for entrepreneurs courting VCs.  It’s more like what not to say to a VC. Example: You say: “I love to think of new ways to solve problems.” Investor thinks: “Is this a high-school science fair?”

• The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) has released the 2008 Venture Capital Year Book in pdf format, providing details the state of the venture capital industry and detailed industry statistics for the past twenty years.

Miscellaneous – Facebook, Twitter and your other favorite topics

• Social netwroking spend takes a dip. Venturebeat comments on the lower projections made by eMarketer.  Teaser: eMarketer expects Facebook to make $265 million in ad revenue this year, below the previous $305 million projection.
• Twitter gets $15 million in funding from Spark Capital and previous backer Union Square ventures based on a $100 million valuation. All these good news despite the fact that Twitter was down again this week. Is it Ruby or Scoble?

• How will Android compare with the iPhone? ReadWriteWeb has an interesting opinion.

Events

• New York: It’s Internet Week in New York next week.  Several cool events with open access to all presented by presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

• New York New Tech Meetup in IAC’s cool building. Meetup.com founder Scott Heiferman is hosting blog extraordinaire Huffington Post, Thumbplay, Mimeo, DailyCandy, Etsy and more. RSVP here while there are tickets.

Israeli startups

• Visual search and image recognition site Picitup launches in public beta. The Israeli startup led by brothers Alon and Dan Atsmon focuses on filtering matching images from Yahoo and Google, hence reducing the number of pages needed to conduct a successful image search. Roi Carthy has a good review.

• TechCrunch reports that b5media, a network of 350 blogs started by Darren Rose, partnered with Israel’s Picscout to let bloggers embed high quality images spiced with ads.

• Gigya Socialize is the latest release by Israeli startup Gigya, one of the web’s largest widget distributors. The new services allows site owners to  increase page views by including social features on their site such as: Inviting friends from other social networks, sharing content with multiple users and integrating a newsfeed.

• LiveFace, a fun Israeli blog (Hebrew) on everything Facebook recommends two Israeli apps HiYo Wall, a cool way to add animation to your profile wall, and On My Radar.

• Israeli-Palestinean startup G.Host goes live with its ‘virtual computer’. Will be interesting to see if their unique business model will hold.

Mobile

• The state of the Mobile Web – a report put together by veteran browser Opera paints an interesting picture – the most popular sites on the web are also the most popular on the mobile  – you can figure out what it means about all the emerging mobile social networks.

M&A

• Israeli company Cellvine has signed an agreement to acquire Wi-Tron Inc. Deal terms were not disclosed.

• Want your startup to get acquired by CBS? Start by watching Bambi Francisco’s interview with Mike Marquez, head of M&A at one of the world’s largest media companies.

VC Rounds

• Israel’s Correlsense raised a $3M A round led by Vertex Venture Capital, Proseed Venture Capital, and eXeed Technology. The Company’s flagship product, SharePath, helps big companies manage IT Service Level Agreement (SLA) management software solutions. More in TheMarker.

• Enterprise software start-up Metiis Technologies announced an $8 million round led by Greylock Partners and Carmel Ventures. CTO Dr. Israel Ben-Shaul and CEO Dr. Ilan Kessler founded Metiis 6 months ago. The two are seasoned entrepreneurs with a succesful exit under their belt – they founded and sold startup Actona to Cisco for $100 million, according to Globes.

• VC investments in Israel are driving positive returns for the first time since 2000, says The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). In its investment report for 2007, the $230 billion pension fund lists the returns from its investments in Israeli VC Funds. More on Globes.
• Omniguide completed a fifth round of $25 million led by Psilos Group. The Israeli-American company was founded in 2000 by Yoel Pink and Uri Calderoni develops medical supplies, primarily a an optical fiber that serves as a cutting scalpel for medial operations.

That’s all for now, have a great weekend.  Feel free to send VC Cafe your suggestions, or Israeli products you would like to get reviewed.

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