Pelango, the mobile application development company that created Whrrl, has been acquired by Groupon. Whrrl allows users to check in to locations and discover new places. Pelango founder Jeff Holden will become an executive of Groupon’s product development team as part of the acquisition. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.

MindJolt is a gaming company that is run by MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe. DeWolfe left MySpace a few years after News Corporation acquired the social network company.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has acquired Kosmix for over $300 million according to a source with AllThingsD. Kosmix is a social media platform company that has raised $55 million in funding from Time Warner Investments, Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DAG Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Jonathan Miller, and Ed Zander.

Doxo is a paperless billing company that has raised $10 million in Series B funding in a round led by Sigma Partners. Existing investors Mohr Davidow and Bezos Expeditions also participated in this round. Thomas Layton, former OpenTable CEO, invested in this round and is joining the board of directors at Doxo as well. Doxo is a paperless billing company that has raised $15 million in total funding. On average businesses pay $10 per year per customer for sending them paper bills. Doxo aims to reduce the cost incurred for these businesses. Some of Doxo’s clients include Sprint, Puget Sound Energy, and Kansas City Power & Light. [TechCrunch]

Heartland Robotics is a company that was founded in 2008 by Rodney Brooks. Brooks was an iRobot co-founder and was the former director of MIT’s Computer Science and A.I. Lab. Heartland has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Highland Capital Partners. The Series B was joined by existing investors Charles River Ventures and Bezos Expeditions along with new investor Sigma Partners. [TMCNet]

Aviary is a web-based software company that has designed applications such as Image Editor, Color Editor, Vector Editor, Effect Editor, Screen Capture, Image Markup, and Audio Editor. Aviary is based in Long Island, New York. And now the company has raised $7 million in Series B from Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com) and Spark Capital.

Bezos’ investment was made through his venture firm Bezos Expeditions. Aviary competes directly with Adobe Systems Inc. To access Aviary’s web based applications, the subscription cost is $24.99 for the Pro version. The Pro version gives more enhanced file privacy, full watermark control, higher quality thumbnails, and unlimited storage. The basic version gives access to the web base applications too.

“We are disrupting the status quo by eliminating the long-held barriers to digital creation and giving creators the tools they need to create, market and monetize their vision,” stated Aviary Inc. founder and CEO Avi Muchnick. “We are extremely excited to have Spark Capital on board. Their broad-ranging internet, software and consumer experience will be a tremendous asset to us in furthering our mission to make creation accessible to creators of all genres.”

ZocDoc is a service that allows users to sign up for doctor appointments online in New York City, NY.  As ZocDoc plans to expand their online services to other major cities, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos and salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff have come together to invest an undisclosed amount in ZocDoc.  Bezos’ investment came through Bezos Expeditions.

Last month Vinod Khosla’s investment arm, Khosla Ventures led the investment of $3 million Series A in ZocDoc.  ZocDoc did not disclose how much this round of funding was, but it is “in the ballpark” of the Series A [SAI].  ZocDoc’s founders include Nick Ganju, Cyrus Massoumi, and Oliver Kharraz, M.D.  ZocDoc plans to make revenue from advertising and charging a nominal fee to practicioners.

The site has rough 50,000-60,000 users.  ZocDoc also turned one years old today. 

A couple months ago, Social Gaming Network raised $15 million in Series A from investors such as Greylock, Columbia Capital, Founders Fund, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners.  Now the company has another solid investor backing them up, founder of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos.  Bezos invested through his firm, Bezos Expeditions.

“We are proud to be announcing the Bezos Expeditions investment,” stated Shervin Pishevar, the CEO of SGN. “Mr. Bezos’ knowledge and experience lends itself to the growth and expansion of the social gaming ecosystem. His participation in our funding will allow us to continue capturing new demographics in gaming by distributing the highest quality games available on the social web.”

Social Gaming Network specifically designs games and applications for mainstream social networks.  Some of the games that SGN has developed includes Warbook, Jetman, Street Race, Text Twirl, Free Gifts, FightClub, Nicknames, and Superlatives.

“SGN has the expertise to bring gaming into entirely new markets.” stated Steve Campbell, the CIO of Bezos Expeditions. “There’s an obvious benefit to gaining such deep traction in the social networking area.”

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