“We are thrilled to close this significant round of financing,” stated Shawn Hardin, CEO of Flock. “Following the tremendous market response to Flock’s commercial release, this new funding will enable us to continue our browser innovation – making engagement and participation across social networks and the Web as effortless as consumption.”

Flock is an open source social networking browser built around other open source layout engines.  Flock was created using Javascript, DOM, XUL, and XPCOM.  Yesterday Flock announced that they have raised $15 million in Series D funding.  The funding was provided by Fidelity Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures. 

With the new round of funding, Flock plans to expand business for R&D, marketing, and expansion.  Flock stated that this round of funding was higher than prior investments and that revenue has risen 400% since Jan. 2008.  And Flock’s user base increased by 250% since Jan. 2008.

Information Source:
[1] Flock Press Release

Xoom is one of the biggest money transfer companies on the Internet today.   The $20.29 million Series E funding was sent to Xoom from Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Fidelity Ventures, and DAG Ventures.

Xoom is based in San Francisco, Calif. and previously raised $15 million in Series D in 2006.  Cumulatively, Xoom raised over $50 million to power its business operations.

Xoom makes money transfer easy in 4 steps:
1.) Enter your contact info, recipient’s info, and the amount of money to be sent.
2.) Select a delivery method.
3.) Select a payment method (Visa/MasterCard/eCheck, Discover, Paypal).
4.) Send your recipient a tracking method.

However, due to all the third parties involved, its rather difficult to support all of the developing countries for their operations.  This is why Xoom is limited to only Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Phillippines, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Vietnam.  I’m assuming that with this new round of funding, Xoom will be able to expand its operations to support other countries. 

Recipients of money transfers for Xoom do not necessarily require a bank account or Internet connection to receive funds because Xoom has money transfer partners to provide ways to send money to family and friends in other countries.

Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital, Dick Kramlich of New Enterprise Associates, Anne Mitchell of Fidelity Ventures, Keith Hartz of the founding team of Xoom, and Keith Rabois sit on the Board of Directors for Xoom.