“We could not be more pleased with the announcement we are making today. This funding is indicative of how SGN is poised to dramatically impact the future of gaming platforms on the social web, stated Shervin Pishevar, CEO of Social Gaming Network (SGN). Our focus and drive is to develop a dynamic and flourishing ecosystem for gaming on the web and continue to be the obvious choice for game developers who want to create social games that engage millions of users on the social networks and beyond.”

Many of today’s companies are finding ways to create games to keep users appealed whether its on their own websites or powered by applications within top social networks. As there has been a slowdown in the development of pointless applications on these social networks, many companies are finding that games are the way to go. This is further evidenced by the funding that Social Gaming Network received today.

Greylock Partners, Founders Fund, Columbia Capital, and Biddle Venture Partners have invested $15 million Series A into SGN. SGN is focusing on making it easy for developers to consolidate applications on top of gaming to create a way to interact with users and to monetize through the application’s popularity.

With this round of funding, SGN will add more features and functionalities to their current platform.

SGN’s claim to fame was the instant traction that was gained by Warbook, the company’s first Facebook game. Other popular applications that SGN has produced includes Jetman, Free Gifts, Fight Club, Superlatives, Nicknames, Street Race, and Text Twirl.

SGN’s userbase includes 1 million daily game players, 70 million virtual gifts sent, and 50 million application installations.

SGN is based in Palo Alto, Calif.  The SGN Blog is located at: http://blog.socialgn.com/.  For developers, SGN APIs are located at: http://developers.socialgn.com/.

Information Source:
[1] Press Release sent by theMIX Inc.

“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.

William Gorog should be worried. Gorog is the CEO of Napster and their direct competitor, Ruckus Network[1] just raised $10 million in funding. This is Ruckus’ second round of investment and the funding was led by Anschutz Investment Company LLC and Columbia Capital[2].

Ruckus’ membership grew 60% during the Spring 2007 semester and signed contracts with 40 new schools. Currently the company has 120 memberships. Ruckus service is exclusive to those who have a .edu e-mail address.

“Today’s funding announcement caps what is arguably the most significant, successful and exciting period to date for Ruckus,“ stated Mike Bebel, the CEO of Ruckus Network, Inc. “Ruckus has become the digital entertainment service of choice for college students and administrators alike, creating considerable interest among advertisers and marketers who recognize the vast potential Ruckus fulfills. With this investment round, we are poised for even greater growth.“

Ruckus established partnerships with OneNet and Merit, who are the Internet Service Providers for educational institutions Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, Western Michigan University, etc.

The new funding will be used to develop further advertisement partnerships. Ruckus also provides full length movies for streaming.

[1] www.ruckus.com
[2] www.colcap.com

Oodle is a startup that has over 20 million classified ads and features listings from all over the U.S. and the UK. Oodle has raised $11 million in a 2nd round from current investors, Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures along with new investor, JAFCO Ventures. The first round was $5 million. Oodle has a partnership with The Washington Post (D.C.) and The Sun (British tabloid owned by News Corp).

This is Amp’d Mobile’s 5th round of funding and the amount is quite substantial. According to the SEC, Amp’d has raised $107 million. This round of funding was provided by Old Lane Management (hedge fund created by former Morgan Stanley execs) and joins previous venture backers: Columbia Capital, Highland Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Intel Capital, MTV Networks, Tudor Investments and Universal Music. The CEO of Amp’d is Peter Adderton, who also founded Boost Mobile.

Gal Trifon and Ofer Zadikario founded Eyeblaster in 1999 and has established the company as a leader in digital marketing. The company had announced today that it has raised $30 million in funding from private investors. The company has been profitable every year since 2002. The company was founded in Israel and had previously raised $10 million ($8 of which came from Insight Venture Partners). The current investors are Eli Barkat (BRM Capital), Jonathan Kolber (Koor Industries, Ltd.), Shlomo Dovrat (Carmel Ventures), Harel Beit-On (Carmel Ventures), and Nir Barkat. Eyeblaster designs rich media and standard banners.

MyCoupons, a Pittsburgh-based company that was the first online coupon site launched in 1995 and took in $750,000 to re-launch its product… as a social network. “We have invested close to three quarters of a million dollars over the past year and we are proud to be able, today, to announce our re-birth” stated a company representative [Source: alarm:clock]. Jason Wolfe, the original founder of MyCoupons had bought back the domain name from Direct Response Technologies after the Save.com (who bought it for MyCoupons.com for $20M) went bankrupt after the dot-com bust.

Ludic Labs is a San Mateo-based company that is run by Dr. Brian Totty. According to alarm:clock, Totty was most recently a Venture Advisor at Foundation Capital and was a Founding VP of Research and Development and a General Manager of Inktomi. Inktomi was bought by Yahoo! in March 2003. “Ludic Labs is creating a mass-scale, social-media service for internet and mobile devices” stated a Ludic Labs representative. The company says that they are well funded and are planning on hiring Python, Web UI, and Internet Service developers around Silicon Valley shortly.

Boorah, a retaurant review website based in New York has raised angel funding and is now looking for venture capitalist funding. The company was founded by Nagaraju Bandaru and Eric Moyer. Both of them were previous executives for wireless broadband provider, MetroFi. Moyer presented BooRah at the past DEMO conference.

[Information Source: PaidContent and alarm:clock]