Top stories in today?s VentureWire:
Urjanet, an aggregator of electricity consumption and related data, raised $4 million in a Series B round led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from its previous backers GRA Venture Fund and Imlay Investments. It?s Grotech?s first investment in the sector of energy information technology. Urjanet is named after the word ?urja,? which means ?energy? in Sanskrit.
A?half dozen investors are investing $7 million in Spreecast, co-founded by Jeff Fluhr, a service that enables real-time Web conversations that also allow listeners to participate. It works on all platforms and allows users to save, share and embed talks on their own sites. Spreecast isn?t targeting people who already know each other?it is working to attract celebrities, authors, athletes and others who can attract a large audience willing to pay for the privilege.
Also in today?s VentureWire, InCrowd, a provider of real-time health-care market research to pharmaceutical companies via smartphones and other devices, has raised a first institutional funding round of $2.2 million to add features to its service and new staff to the company?Quirky announced $68 million in Series C funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from new investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for its online collaboration platform that bring a social aspect to product development. The round includes existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and RRE Ventures?and Footage Firm?doing business as Video Blocks has ?just received $10.5 million in Series A funding to sell 100% royalty-free, stock video clips and other content through an ?all you can eat? Netflix-inspired subscription service, aiming to capitalize on rising online and mobile video consumption.
(VentureWire is a daily newsletter with comprehensive analysis of all the investments, deals and personnel moves involving start-ups and their venture backers. For a two-week trial, visit our homepage, scroll to the bottom and click ?try for free.?)
Elsewhere around the Web:
Josh Lerner, a Harvard professor and venture industry expert, questions whether venture capital truly drives innovation, in an article in MIT?s Technology Review that is sure to spark controversy.
Secondary marketplace SharesPost naturally believes that exchanges for private company stock are good for the venture economy and it has backed a study supporting that view. Founder and President Greg Brogger writes about it on Xconomy.
Investors soured by Facebook would be foolish to overlook Workday, which filed its IPO paperwork last week, says The Wall Street Journal?s Heard on the Street column. The venture-backed company competes with Oracle and SAP in selling business software for human-resources management.
Months after it was announced, Facebook?s acquisition of Instagram has closed with the nearly 23 million in shares that Facebook agreed to pay worth just under $19 apiece as of Thursday compared with $31 when the purchase agreement was reached in April. Facebook also paid $300 million cash for the venture-backed photo-sharing service.
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