Glassdoor Inc., a social networking company focused on employment conditions in the workplace, has raised $3 million in Series B funding led by Benchmark Capital. The company is run by former Hotwire president Robert Hohman, while fellow co-founder Rich Barton serves as chairman. Barton is the CEO of Zillow, and also serves as a venture partner at Benchmark.

Originally posted on March 25, 2008 @ 4:36 pm

Retrevo, Inc., the matchmaking service between consumers and electronics that simplifies people’s relationship lifecycle with electronic products, has secured $8 million in a second round of institutional funding. This round was led by Alloy Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and will be used for product development, partnership expansion and consumer marketing.

Retrevo has created a totally new paradigm for how consumers find, buy and use electronics. The Retrevo Product Advisor is the first of its kind that empowers consumers to not only find products with the best community sentiment but also shop for products by value and find those products that deliver the best bang for the buck. Consumers quickly gain knowledge and confidence before walking into a retail store or purchasing products online.

Retrevo also helps consumers decide when it may not be the best time to buy, such as with high definition DVD players. While Toshiba and NEC have folded their HD DVD format, finding good values on Blu-ray DVD players from Sony, Panasonic, Philips or others are still few and far between.

Originally posted on March 21, 2008 @ 5:18 pm

RiverWired, the content and social networking community for an eco-friendly audience, has raised $1.5 million in a round of seed-stage funding. RiverWired produces eco-friendly lifestyle web and video content for the RiverWired.com Web site as well as for third party video and community web sites.

With the mission of assisting people to live a little greener while still having a lot of fun, the RiverWired editorial team aggregates content from some of the best writers, bloggers, photographers, videographers and filmmakers on the web. The Company has developed an efficient economic model for content production, enabling them to create low-cost web videos that are able to garner millions of views over RiverWired’s network of video channels. The site’s revenue is derived from advertising and sponsorships from companies specifically targeting green audiences, which include eco-friendly businesses and products as well as causes and charities.

Originally posted on March 20, 2008 @ 11:57 am

SpinVox has secured over $100 million in a new funding round. The new round builds on previous investments made in the company by private equity investors such as Martin Hughes, Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse and Peter Wood, the founder of Direct Line, eSure and Sheila’s Wheels and institutional investors such as ABN Amro, Gartmore and Allen & Co.

The funds will be devoted to further building the global business of the UK-headquartered company that already operates on four continents and has signed deals with 12 carrier networks and intends to double that number during the next year.

Originally posted on March 20, 2008 @ 11:04 pm