Undisclosed
World Golf Tour is a social network for golfers, which has raised funding from Battery Ventures. The amount has not been disclosed. The social network allows golf enthusiasts to enter tournaments, win prizes, and practice on virtual courses.
World Golf Tour is managed by J.F. Prata. Prata was a previous VP of Product Development at EA. Prata was also the COO at Maxis and Westwood Studios.
$25.79 Million
ChoiceStream is a leading provider of search engine personalization raised $25.79 million for its product, a search engine that personalizes online entertainment content. This is ChoiceStream’s third round of funding. The second round was $13.1 million. ChoiceStream was founded by Michael Strickman and he is also the CTO.
$675,000
BioWizard is an online information portal that closed its first round of funding. The amount was for $675,000 in Series A Preferred Stock. And the investor is MentorTech Ventures.
“MentorTech Ventures brings much more than the financial capital. The team’s substantial intellectual and social capital is a valuable asset that we plan to leverage as we continue to build the company,” stated Jeffrey Boily, the chairman of BioWizard. “MentorTech has industry extensive experience and strong relationships with the business and scientific communities to assist us in reaching our full growth potential. This new financing will support our ongoing efforts to add new functionality to our site and
increase our brand awareness in the scientific and medical markets.”
What makes BioWizard Web 2.0ish is that the company has implemented a Digg-like voting feature for articles that are pulled. It appears that a majority of the articles on the front page are pulled from the National Institute of Health website.
“There is a significant demand in the biomedical research community for an interactive web community like BioWizard,” mentioned Michael Aronson, the managing director of MentorTech Ventures. Aronson is now a BioWizard board member. “The site offers a unique combination of information and collaboration tools that are not otherwise available to scientists and physicians. Founded by a team of current University of Pennsylvania graduate students, BioWizard is a perfect fit for our portfolio. We look forward to taking an active role in making BioWizard the leading online portal for biomedical research scientists.”
Rumored At Over $200 Million
Comcast indicated last Wednesday that it may buy Fandango, a movie ticketing service website. The amount is rumored at $200 mill according to Michael Arrington. Fandango is supposedly also making $50 million per year.
Fandango has raised $60 million from investors since 2000. The deal is expected to close before the end of the quarter.
Previous investors of Fandango include Accretive Technology Partners, Cinemark, General Atlantic, Lowes Corporation, and Technology Crossover Ventures.
