Merus Capital is an early stage venture capital firm founded by former Google and Microsoft executives. Started in 2007, Merus is preparing to raise a new $100 million fund. Merus was founded by Salman Ullah and Sean Dempsey. [Reuters]

Ansca Mobile is a mobile iPhone platform company that was started by several former Adobe executives. Merus Capital has invested $1 million into the company. What does Ansca sell? The company sells a platform called Corona that makes it simple to make iPhone applications. Some of the features include desktop preview, rich graphics, easy to understand coding, hardware integration, fast binaries, a debugger, unlimited apps, and extensive documentation.

Some of the games created using Corona include Flip ‘Em off, Depth, Total Solar Eclipses, Poker Arcade, Superdoku, Box of Sox, Fishies, and tapDots [iTunes links here]. Ansca is led by CEO Carlos Icaza, who worked with CTO Walter Luh to build a mobile version of Flash when they were working at Adobe.