Media6° is an up and coming New York-based start-up company.  Media6° uses social graph data to provide marketers with target audience information.  Media6° recently raised $9 million Series A, led by U.S. Venture Partners.  Other investors include Coriolis Ventures and Contour Venture Partners.  Several angel investors also participated.

“Media6° creates fully customized audiences for advertisers based on currently available advertiser data,” stated Joe Doran, CEO of Media6°. Prior to starting Media6°, Doran worked at Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ:MSFT) as the General Manager of AdCenter.

Media6° has several patent pending algorithms that have a focus on connecting existing customers to potential consumers within a social graph.

“Media6° is revolutionary. It is the first company we have seen to tap the potential of social data for advertisers,” stated Tim Connors, General Partner of U.S. Venture Partners. “The early work with 30 alpha and beta customers since April points to the enormous promise of Media6° and the work that Joe and the team have undertaken.”

Tim Connors and and Ted Maidenberg of U.S. Venture Partners will be joining the Board at Media6°.

Related Link:
1. Media6Degrees.com
2. Media6° Press Release

“When looking at investment opportunities in the consumer internet sector, we found myYearbook offered the most attractive and engaging value proposition for both members and advertisers alike,” stated stated Sergio Monsalve, partner at Norwest Venture Partners. “The company has created a service that is highly valued by its members and a platform for marketers to reach and engage this audience in a friendly and effective way.”

myYearbook.com has raised $13 million Series B from U.S. Venture Partners, First Round Capital, and Norwest Venture Partners.  myYearBook plans on using the money to provide additional services to members and focus on building revenue.  Brother and sister teenage entrepreneurs, Dave and Catherine Cook started myYearbook in 2005.

myYearbook receives about 10 million monthly unique visits per month.  So far, myYearbook has raised about $18.6 million.  Sergio Monsalve will be joining myYearbook.com’s Board of Directors through this round of funding.

“We are excited to have NVP and Sergio on board as we enter this next phase of our growth,” stated Geoff Cook, CEO of myYearbook. “We are focused on creating new, innovative services that will offer long-lasting value to both advertisers and our members. NVP’s track record of success and Sergio’s deep operational experience from brand name companies like Photobucket and eBay will be invaluable to our team.” 

Related Links:
1. myYearbook.com
2. Business Wire
3. TechCrunch
4. Sergio’s profile (via NorwestVP.com)
5. Mashable

Zannel is an online mobile instant messaging service with a focus on video.  The company announced that they have raised $10 million in Series B from Alloy Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Palomar Ventures.  The mobile version of their site is available at http://wap.zannel.com.

Last month, Zannel won the 2008 Webby Award for Best Mobile Social Network.  This is impressive considering that they are competing directly with YouTube Mobile.  I tested videos on both Zannel mobile and YouTube mobile and found more success in playing videos with Zannel.

Zannel also has photo sharing and pic chat built in.  Videos can be sorted by most recent, most discussed, recently active, most favorited, and top rated.  Zannel’s mobile platform also looks sleek on an iPhone, but then again what doesn’t?

Zannel’s blog is available at: http://press.zannel.com/category/blog/.  The company has raised a total of $16 million in funding.

Information Source:
[1] SiliconTap.com: Zannel Raises $10M

“Geez, if getting a million dollars for some half-assed sketches is this easy, I’m gonna take a drive down Sand Hill Road and find myself a VC,” wisecracked Nick Douglas over at ValleyWag^[1].  Douglas is referring to the recent $1 million in funding for NationalBanana.com provided by U.S. Venture Partners^[2].

NationalBanana.com is a website that contains satire clips of current events.  For example, there are clips such as Sands of Passion Episodes 1-9 which mocks Al Qaeda in the form of soap operas, The Politics of Stem Cell Research which satires George W. Bush’s take on stem cell research, and a satire of Paris Hilton being in jail.  I watched some of these clips and none of what I watched was that funny.  Passions of Sands seems like a funny idea–Al Qaeda soap opera, but the clips actually did seem a lot more dramtic than funny.  What NationalBanana needs to do is produce quick and funny short clips.

While Jerry Zucker, the founder of the website has a credible background such as serving as the producer for the movie, Airplane!, directing 2001’s Rat Race, and wrote the scripts for a couple of the movies in the Naked Gun series, I believe NationalBanana has been a disappointment thus far.  Hopefully with the new round of funding, some new talent will be hired and we can see NationalBanana’s potential to compete against Michael Kvamme’s Funny or Die! website (which has clips starring Will Ferrell).

NationalBanana should also take notes from the guys at TheLonelyIsland.com who have seen enormous success with Internet videos which became viral fast.  NationalLampoon.com has some good clips too.  Transformers in the Hood on NationalLampoon is pretty funny^[3].