My favorite line “This VC Money is brand new, the geek is now damn cool” – let’s hear it for “New Dork”:

Social web is what dreams are made of…

The software is available for free download at m.snaptu.com. Once installed, the software will appear in the phone’s “games” or “applications” folder, offering a pre-loaded set of apps like a mobile Twitter client, Facebook, Picasa, news RSS reader, Trivia and more.

In the official announcement, Gili Raanan,a partner at Sequoia Capital said:

“We’re excited by Snaptu’s technology and vision and look forward to working with them to fulfill it. We see huge value for consumers and mobile operators in Snaptu’s unique approach to bringing mobile applications to virtually any phone”

When you use snaptu for the first time, a set of default apps appear on the home page of the applications. You can add, remove and organize these apps by using the menu

Snaptu monetizes its apps with ads, so they all remain free to users. The company was founded by Ran Makavy, Barak Naveh, Lior Tal and Micha Berdichevsky. It has reported to have 4 million downloads to date.

Eyeblaster, an Israeli company headquartered in New York, develops several media-rich advertising formats (see examples here and here) and interactive ad features, as well as MediaMind, campaign management software for agencies and online advertisers.  Eyeblaster pulled out of its initial IPO filing in October 2008 citing the “market conditions” as a reason for the delay. Today, Eyeblaster notified the SEC of its intention to go public as detailed in the company’s S-1 Filing. Eyeblaster is trying to raise $115 million by selling stock. This is the exact amount it was trying to raise two years ago, in the initial IPO.

EyeBlaster Rich Media ad formats - will they be enough to attract $115 million in funding?

Joseph Tartakoff @Paidcontent posted a good analysis of the filing:

—Financial performance: The recession appears to have taken a big hit on Eyeblaster’s growth. Revenue inched up only two percent to $65.1 million in 2009. By contrast, sales had jumped 43 percent the year before.  Net income did however increase to $9.8 million last year, from $6.2 million, in part due to cost-cutting (Eyeblaster says it “focused on cutting costs given the uncertain global economic environment” during the first half of 2009). The company has $15.4 million in cash and cash equivalents.

—Ownership: Eyeblaster had raised about $40 million in funding, including $30 million in a round three years ago. Its main shareholder is Sycamore Technologies Ventures, which owns 33.9 percent of the company. Other big stockholders include Insight Ventures (22.6 percent), CEO Gal Trifon (8.1 percent) and co-founder Osfer Zadikario (6.2 percent).

—Use of funds: The company says it will use the cash for general corporate purposes, as well as possibly to “acquire or invest in companies and technologies”—although it says it has no immediate plans to do so.

—Stock: Underwriters include JP Morgan Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Pacific Crest Securities, FBR Capital Markets, ThinkEquity, and Broadpoint Capital.

This would be the seventh digital firm to go public in 2010 including Israel’s Vringo (see SEC filing) as well as GameFly, Everyday Health, Motricity, Lulu, and Reply.com. Can Eyeblaster pull it off this time?

Amidst a 72% decline in funds raised by Israeli venture capital funds in 2009, Battery Ventures announced the completion of  its new fund, BV-9, totaling $750 million

The New York Times says the new fund is a signal that Silicon Valley is being revived, but according to the Wall Street Journal,  it was lower fees and carry that  facilitated securing the capital:

It helped that Battery proactively offered some investor-friendly terms. The firm lowered its carried interest fee–the fee that it takes on profits made in the fund–to 20% from 25% previously, though the fee would rise to 30% after the fund returns three times its capital, said Mr. Crotty. In addition, Battery’s partners showed their commitment by putting more money into the fund themselves than in its past funds, among other moves, he said.

The current fund brings Battery’s assets under management to approximately $4 billion. Battery plans to keep the same investment strategy implemented since the fund’s inception in 1983, backing talented entrepreneurs and businesses with high potential that spread out across three dimensions:

• Domain expertise: The main investment areas are Internet and digital media, financial services and information, Communications services, semiconductor technology, Enterprise IT, green technology and software.
• Maturity: Battery invests in companies at all stages – from seed to later stage private equity buyouts.
• Geography: The Company invests throughout the world, with most investments are made in North America, Europe, Israel and India.

The Israeli office of Battery Ventures includes:  Scott Tobin, Itzik Parnafes, Avi Domoshevizki, Eyal Shinar and David Sokolic. The Israeli office most recently invested in Pursway (see previous coverage).

From free coupons to entice customers to the nearest Starbucks, through a small ad hoc mobile travel guide, mobile and GPS location services are rewriting the rules while the mobile content and advertising business.

Todacell matches ads from the client’s inventory based on user data, location, time, and the performance of ad campaigns on that publisher’s mobile website or application.  The company says it only works with a select group of premium publishers, including Fring, MobiLuck, Mocospace and TuneWiki, which enables them to get better conversions for the advertiser.

The TodaCell marketing team also pointed out that mobile ads aren’t only running on mobile phones. Think iPad, Kindle, hand-held gaming devices, etc. Todacell has successfully run campaigns on hand-held gaming devices for Orange (telecom) in Europe, and expect more announcements soon.

As an exit strategy, TodaCell is looking for a trade sell, following the major acquisitions of mobile advertising platforms in the last 5 months: Google -AdMob, Apple-Quattro Wireless and Opera acquired AdMarvel.

To date, Todacell has secured $2 million from AfterDox and others, including $350,000 seed funding from the Fore Group. In June 2009, VC Cafe exclusively posted the $1 million round raised by TodaCell, a Tel Aviv based mobile ad network.

The proceeds of this round will be dedicated to fuel the company’s growth as it continues to scale from strength to strength. DoubleVerify reportedly grew from 10 to 45 employees in 2 quarters and is currently serving 25 billion impressions per month.

The reason for the rapid growth is given in the official press release:

DoubleVerify provides a technology solution that delivers transparency and accountability for agencies, marketers, publishers and ad networks running online ad campaigns. Advertising verification has created a fundamental shift in the online industry that for first time allows marketers to accurately verify their campaigns for brand safety, delivery accuracy and regulatory compliance. Major agencies and marketers have adopted verification in the past year, many of which have mandated the use of DoubleVerify across their entire online media spend.

Founded by Oren Netzer (CEO) and Alex Liverant (CTO) in 2008, DoubleVerify is headquartered in New York and has it engineering offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.  The company most recently raised a $3.5 million first round last May.