“Gizmoz has enjoyed widespread adoption by consumers, advertisers and media partners over the last year, and with a number of exciting new products, programs and partnerships underway, the company is poised for significant expansion in 2008,” stated Eyal Gever, CEO/Founder of Gizmoz. “As we move forward on a number of key initiatives, building cross platform synergies into our service is at the top of the list. To pursue our strategy, Asia will be key. This financing will play an important role in helping us develop unique offerings for this market.”

Today Gizmoz, a social network that allows users to make 3D faces sync with their voices has raised $6.5 million. This is Gizmoz second round of funding, led by DoCoMo Capital. Other investors of this round includes Benchmark Capital, ngi capital inc., and Columbia Capital.

Gizmoz plans on using this round of funding to introduce their services around Asia, starting in Japan.

“Japan represents a large and strategic market for the company. Gizmoz’s offerings come at an opportune time in the development of Japan’s extensive mobile ecosystem, and they should feed the strong desire of Japanese consumers to embrace innovative content enhanced by Gizmoz’s technology,” stated Nobuyuki Akimoto, President and CEO of DoCoMo Capital.

AIM users may have also noticed on the start page that Gizmoz has signed a deal with AOL. AOL Instant Messenger, the most used messaging system in the U.S. can now create AIM Gizmoz Expressions and connect it to their account. Gizmoz previously advertised for Taco Bell and has a Facebook Application called In Your Face. Gizmoz widgets can be embedded in Hi5, Bebo, Orkut, and MySpace pages as well.

Competitors include JibJab and Blabberize. Gizmoz was started in 2003 and has offices in Menlo Park, Calif. and Israel.

“We got involved in an exciting and competitive investment in Bebo because we believed in the social networking space and the fact that Bebo was positioned for exponential growth,” stated Barry Maloney, a partner at Balderton.  “Our expectations for Bebo have been exceeded in a relatively short period of time, and today’s transaction with AOL has delivered an exceptional return on our original investment in 2006.”

The venture capital firm, Balderton Capital has sold off their shares of Bebo to AOL today.  The amount that they will earn from the deal is $140 million.  This is about 9 times the return on investment that they made into the social network 2 years ago.  Balderton plugged in $15 million to Bebo in May 2006.  Balderton also invested in MySQL, which sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion.

Balderton is based in London, England.  Balderton also invested in Betfair, Codemasters, Habbo Hotel, Setanta Sports.  Balderton used to be the European arm of Benchmark Capital.

Metacafe has over 25 million unique views per month. And yesterday the company officially announced that they have officially raised $30 million in Series C from Highland Capital, DAG Ventures, Accel Partners, and Benchmark Capital. While YouTube dominates traffic for online video, it seems that Metacafe has a more established business model since users are actually rewarded financially for their creativity.

“Metacafe is defining the next generation of online video, moving away from simple video sharing and hosting to delivering an exceptional entertainment experience for short-form content,” said Richard de Silva, Partner, Highland Capital Partners. “Its sophisticated approach to audience-driven programming is unique in the industry.”

With this round of funding, Metacafe plans on supporting continuous operations and developing the Producer Rewards program further. The Producer Rewards program gives users a financial incentive to develop intriguing video content. For every thousand views a video gets on a site, the user will receive $5. The video has to reach a minimum of 20,000 views.

Highland Capital Partners’ Richard de Silva and DAG Ventures’ Tom Goodrich will join Metacafe’s Board of Directors. Metacafe is privately headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. and has offices in Tel Aviv, Israel and NYC, NY.

References:
[1] alarm:clock: Video Site MetaCafe Hammers $30M Round

Avvo.com, a start-up that is currently in stealth mode.  The company is based in Seattle, WA and is run by former Microsoft and Expedia founders.  The $10 million in funding was provided by Ignition Partners and Benchmark Capital.

The first round of funding was for $3 million so that brings them a grand total of $13 million.  Mark Britton is the CEO/President and was a previous Executive VP of Worldwide Corporate Affairs at InterActiveCorp Travel / Expedia Inc.  Paul Bloom is the VP of Products & Marketing at Avvo and is a former senior manager at Microsoft’s Consumer Division.

Through this fround of funding, Brad Silverberg will be joining the board of directors.  Silverberg is a founding partner at Ignition Partners.

“This investment from Ignition and Benchmark further supports our belief that we have the right solution for helping consumers navigate the highly confusing legal industry,” stated Britton. “Brad is simply the perfect addition to our team with his extensive operating experience, technological prowess and raw smarts. We are lucky to have him.”

For more information, there is a press release available on the Avvo.com Press page.