Tech News Favorites, Week of Nov. 29th - All of the top tech news stories this week - except for the ones we missed.
Notable Fund Raising for the Week
Vostu raised $30M
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Funding came from from Accel and Tiger Global. Vostu is a social game maker that concentrates on Brazil
Yammer Raises $25M
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Total funding now approximately $40M. This funding was led by U.S. Venture Partners with Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund also participating. Yammer wants to be Facebook for enterprise
Abiquoo raises $10M
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Series B funding led by Balderton Capital, with existing investors Nauta Capital and Eurecan participating. Abiquoo makes enterprise cloud management software
Pavvment raises $6M
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Series B funding led by Sierra Ventures with a BlueRun Ventures participating in the round. Pavvment helps users create and run retail stores on Facebook
Totsy Riases $5M
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Series A funding from DFJ Gotham and Rho Ventures. Totsy is a Gilt Groupe for Moms of young children
Racktivity raised $8M
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Series B financing The round was led by Partech International and joined by the startup’s seed investors Big Bang, along with a group of angels based in Europe. Racktivity makes hardware and SAAS software for data centers
Ring Revenue Raises $4M
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Funding led by GRP Partners and Rincon Venture Partners. Ring Revenue ofers a call performance platform that allows companies to complement their marketing efforts with phone-based campaigns
Notable Acquisitions
Ebay Acquires Milo for $75M
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The company had only raised $5M in VC funding. Milow lists real-time in-store product inventory for over 50,000 stores
Google revises search algorithm
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After a NYT article exposed that negative reviews of a vendor can positiviely impact that vendor's Google search rank. Google revised their algorithm to ensure that bad service is not good for search rank
Groupon Might Have Been A Bargain for Google...
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Even though many think that Google's $6B bid for Groupon was extravagant. In fact it may be relatively less expensive than some of Google's other more notable acquisitions
Google Rumor - Chrome OS Branded NetBook
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The computer is expected to be a limited production of ~65K units and is expected to be released to "friends and family"
Data miners trying to get ahead of regulators
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Eight data and tracking firms, including BlueKai Inc., Lotame Solutions Inc. and eXelate Inc. are creating a central location where consumers will be able to see what personal information these firms have already collected, make modifications, or opt out of being tracked.