It’s been a busy week around here for the big tech companies. At Xconomy, we don’t usually report on things like product releases from Microsoft or sales figures from Amazon—our main focus is on new ideas, models, and companies—but readers need to understand where the big players are heading so they can see the gaps and opportunities for new businesses. So, for each of these pieces of mainstream tech news, I’ll tell you why savvy innovators and business leaders should care.

—Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) demonstrated its Web-based Chrome operating system for the first time in public yesterday. It won’t be available for another year, but the tech community is scrambling to understand all the implications. (Google’s Seattle engineers have contributed technology to the Chrome Web browser, helping to boost security—one potential advantage of a cloud-based operating system).

Sure, a fully cloud-based OS is a direct threat to Microsoft’s business model and the ecosystem of companies that support Windows. But more than that, it could reshape the landscape of online advertising by providing a new platform for launching ads on mobile devices, video channels (YouTube), and Internet TV. Perhaps the only thing that can slow down Google’s dominance on the Web is the federal government. In other words, this could get ugly.

—Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has teamed up with LinkedIn to provide info about your business contacts within Outlook e-mail. It’s all part of Microsoft’s Outlook Social Connector, an add-in that feeds you data from your social networks. Integrating e-mail with social networks and search is a fast-growing area, with startups like Gist in Seattle (backed by Paul Allen and Foundry Group) helping lead the way. Gist’s CEO T.A. McCann told TechFlash that he’s known about Microsoft’s effort for a while and doesn’t see it as a direct challenge. Gist’s offering is more advanced, he said, and it includes features like integrating with Salesforce.com and the iPhone. But startups and investors beware: if you’re in this crowded space, you better have a product that cuts through the noise and has a way to attract customers fast.

—RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) is in discussions with Viacom’s MTV Networks to sell off at least some of its stake in the Rhapsody music service, as first reported by PaidContent. In a regulatory filing, prompted by a tender offer to issue new stock, Real said it is in talks to reorganize the management structure and/or corporate governance of the division, which might mean giving up its majority ownership stake (51 percent) in Rhapsody. Back in September, digital-media guru Bill Baxter (now at Seattle-based Cozi) wrote in Xconomy about Rhapsody’s fierce competition with Pandora, iTunes, and piracy. Message to startups: the world of digital music services is probably not where you want to be.

—Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been busy ramping up operations ahead of the holiday shopping season. Its billion-dollar acquisition of Zappos is helping it expand into shoes and apparel, and its Kindle sales look poised to take off, especially now that Barnes & Noble’s competing e-book reader, the Nook, has sold out until January. Amazon has really become the business and technology model to follow in online retail and product search. While there is still room for e-commerce startups to compete in various niches, they would be wise to study how Amazon built its brand and customer relationships before branching out to the wider world of retail.

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We hope to make this a regular feature in our Xconomy cities. It’s a look at small financings of private companies in tech, life sciences, and cleantech. These are deals in the roughly $100,000 to $1 million range, and they’re increasingly where the action is for local entrepreneurs, yet they’re often harder to track than the bigger deals we tend to report on.

And there were at least 12 of these smaller financings in the Northwest in October (see table below), according to ChubbyBrain, a New York-based information services company tracking VC, angel, and other investments in private companies. ChubbyBrain gets its data from regulatory filings, user submissions, and other sources, and this is the second monthly installment of “under the radar” deals in the Seattle area (you can see the previous deals for September here). The data didn’t include the investors or the stage of financing.

A few quick observations: Like the previous month, most of the financings were in Washington (7 out of 12), but a significant number (5) were in Oregon. Most were equity deals (7), with the rest (5) being debt financings. The majority of financings (9) were in software, Internet, or tech, while a much smaller number (3) were in life sciences and healthcare, and no cleantech or energy deals made the list.

If nothing else, these lists are a cool way to hear about emerging startups we otherwise wouldn’t know about. For example, I’ve heard of Teranode, Nearlyweds, and 1000Museums before, but Zapproved and Intellisist are completely new to me.

Here are the 12 “under the radar” deals from last month:

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At least 17 Seattle-area startups rolled out new websites last month, according to the latest edition of Seattle 2.0’s startup index. The index now lists 373 companies, which are ranked on the basis of Web traffic estimates. The top 10 sites didn’t change much from previous months. The startups that are new to the list are HasOffers, BigStartups, Team Apart, Boxoh.com, EnergySavvy.com, Couchsoft (Mentby), Osnapz, Social Kind (TweetToCall, Escape My Date), Fotozio (PicTranslator), Adometry (Veracity), Qbiki Networks (iPhoneSeattle), HotelsOutlook, BuzzMinder (2Reminders), Splitts.com, Data Applied, Baldy Beanbag (The Big Magoo), and Megosi.

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Seattle-based Cozi announced today it has formed a strategic partnership with MeadWestvaco (NYSE: MWV), a Sidney, NY-based maker of school and office supplies and planning tools. Financial terms of the deal weren’t announced, but the partnership will give MWV consumers access to Cozi’s Web-based software for helping families manage their busy schedules. The tools include a family calendar, customized to-do lists, and messaging systems. This is the third partnership Cozi will announce with a Fortune 500 company this year, including a previous deal with Dell to pre-load certain home computers with Cozi’s software.

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It wasn’t so much the predictions as the discussion that was most interesting at last night’s annual predictions dinner, organized by the Washington Technology Industry Association. Will Twitter be acquired in 2010, and why? Who will have the dominant cloud computing platform in the next couple of years? What kind of startup are you looking to build or finance, and which areas are you staying away from?

A panel of Seattle-area tech entrepreneurs and investors gamely took the bait and had some lively exchanges over the course of an hour. OK, these guys all know each other, and we’ll take what they say with a grain of salt since it’s a public forum—but here were some of the most interesting points they made. (You can read more comprehensive recaps of the panel on Brier Dudley’s blog at the Seattle Times, and soon on TechFlash by moderator John Cook.)

The panel was split 3 to 2, with the narrow majority guessing Twitter will get bought next year. Andy Sack of seed-stage fund Founder’s Co-op predicted Twitter will make more money than Facebook in 2010 (surprising, given the current disparity in the other direction). Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, an online real estate firm, said Twitter should charge for search (as it has begun to do in partnerships with Google and Bing). Kelly Smith from Curious Office and the startup Pressplane argued that Twitter could be “absorbed by a big company,” but “it’s going to go nowhere.” By the end of the evening, Sack was predicting that Microsoft would buy Twitter next year.

There was a consensus that 2010 could be a big year for acquisitions. Bill Bryant of Draper Fisher Jurvetson boldly predicted that Amazon will buy Netflix, Blockbuster, and Hulu, while opening brick and mortar “Amazon media stores.” Greg Gottesman from Madrona Venture Group said Cisco might buy EMC (for VMware) and Seattle-based F5 Networks, while Microsoft might buy Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone. Sack predicted Adobe would pick up Seattle photo-editing startup Picnik. Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.) would buy Seattle’s Cheezburger Network, and someone would buy Redfin.

Looking back on 2009 for a minute, the big deals that were questioned by the panel included Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture (Gottesman said it just didn’t make sense strategically) and …Next Page »

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Seattle-based venture capital firm Maveron has been in the news a lot this month. There have been reports about its latest stealth startup, which is a new type of e-commerce play. Another report from VentureWire said Maveron will be selling its shares in Motley Fool—a deal that will generate cash for Maveron, which led a $26.5 million financing of the online investing website in 1999. And then, just yesterday, I got a press release about Maveron expanding to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

The VC firm, co-founded by Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame, is used to this sort of attention. But the San Francisco news was a bit confusing to me, because Maveron has been active in the Bay Area for a long time. As usual, the interesting stuff is in the follow-up. I had a chance to connect yesterday with Dan Levitan, a fellow co-founder of Maveron and the mastermind of the firm’s consumer-focused investment strategy. Besides the new San Francisco office, I also asked Levitan about the Seattle e-commerce startup his team is currently building; his outlook and themes in the consumer tech space; and his first fateful meeting with Schultz back in the early 1990s.

First, some basic stats. Maveron was founded in 1998 by Levitan and Schultz, and is best known for its early investments in eBay, drugstore.com, Shutterfly, and Cranium. Its current portfolio companies—there are 22 active around the U.S.—include Potbelly Sandwich Works, Pinkberry, LiveMocha, and Altius Education. The venture firm has about $750 million under management.

Levitan explained that opening Maveron’s San Francisco office has been a two-year process, but it doesn’t signify any shift in the firm’s geographic focus. “I don’t see this announcement as anything more than opening an office where we’ve already done business,” he said. “We’re one firm with two offices.”

The San Francisco office is headed by Amy Errett, a veteran of Olivia.com and E*Trade, who was announced as a Maveron partner last year. She is joined by new principal Ben Choi, who was previously with Storm Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and RRE Ventures. As Levitan puts it, instead of Errett flying up to Seattle four times a month, she’ll fly up three times a month (and the Seattle team will fly down the fourth week).

But Levitan emphasized that he’s looking in his own backyard for new investments as much as ever. “Seattle is an economy and region that’s very rich with groundbreaking, innovative consumer companies,” he said, pointing out obvious examples like Starbucks, Nordstrom, Amazon, and Costco. One less obvious company he mentioned was online real estate broker Redfin, which isn’t in …Next Page »

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Sony Ericsson, the London-based mobile handset maker, is shutting its Seattle-area office, as first reported by Engadget and Triangle Business Journal. Sony Ericsson is cutting about 2,000 out of 9,900 jobs globally, including closing offices in Research Triangle Park, San Diego, Miami, Kista, Sweden, and Chennai, India. The moves are part of a company-wide restructuring that includes moving its North American headquarters from Research Triangle Park to Atlanta, GA.

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Who says consumer websites are dead? Maybe you don’t need the ridiculous traffic of, say, Seattle-based Cheezburger Network (LOLcats) to survive on advertising revenues. Maybe user-generated content around a targeted niche, especially where there are purchasing decisions being made, can work well after all.

That’s the sense I got after talking with Tom Seery, the founder and president of Seattle-based RealSelf. Launched in 2006, RealSelf.com provides information about cosmetic treatments in an online community format that includes user reviews, doctor listings, and expert advice from cosmetic surgeons, dentists, and dermatologists. The treatments in question—a multibillion dollar market worldwide—run the gamut from nose jobs and tummy tucks to orthodontic braces and breast implants.

RealSelf is particularly interesting because it sits at the intersection of a number of fast-growing (but also challenging) areas for startups—social and community review sites, health 2.0, and ad-supported media sites. The company has gained some traction, growing 150 percent year over year in Web traffic; it now gets more than 700,000 unique visitors per month, Seery says. In terms of local startups with a similar strategy for capturing niches of Internet content (but these are not competitors), I’d mention Avvo, TeachStreet, Raveable, Redfin, Urbanspoon, and Zillow.

Like most promising startups, the story of RealSelf began with some important personal and business observations. Seery was a longtime employee of Bellevue, WA-based Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE), and he saw the competing startup TripAdvisor plug away at hotel reviews and other user-generated ratings until 2004, when IAC (which then owned Expedia) had to buy it. “That was the ‘aha,’” Seery says. He thought, “Where else can we take this empowerment of consumers?”

Around the same time, Seery’s wife was researching a laser cosmetic treatment, and was having a hard time finding trustworthy reviews. So he thought, “Let’s create TripAdvisor for the cosmetic space.” The key adjustment he made was to introduce medical experts to the user community. The challenge there, as with most e-health sites like WebMD and Revolution Health, is that doctors are …Next Page »

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Seattle-based Voyager Capital has participated in a $5 million investment in 1020, the San Francisco developer of Placecast, a location-based advertising and marketing platform, according to a report in TechCrunch. Quatrex Capital and Onset Ventures also participated in the Series B funding, which will be used to accelerate Placecast’s technology development. Placecast’s algorithms combine data across the Web, mobile, e-mail, and Wi-Fi to try to maximize relevance for advertisers and publishers. In an interview with Xconomy last year, Voyager co-founder Enrique Godreau mentioned 1020 as an example of an intriguingly mainstream mobile startup.

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Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace. Those companies’ products spread over the Internet like a virus. But why hasn’t there been a runaway hit like those in the mobile software world? Why does it take so much longer to build value, and a strong customer base, in mobile companies than in certain Internet startups?

Dan Shapiro had some entertaining thoughts on this yesterday, as he spoke to the Mobile Northwest 2009 crowd in Seattle. Shapiro is the co-founder and CEO of Ontela, a Seattle-based mobile imaging startup, and he’s a veteran of RealNetworks and Microsoft. I won’t do justice to his presentation, but here’s the gist.

Hotmail was one of the first examples of viral marketing. By appending the message, “Get your free e-mail at hotmail.com” (or some such) to the bottom of each e-mail, Hotmail helped pioneer a new method of promotion that was “basically free, highly measurable, and ridiculously effective,” Shapiro said. Its number of new subscribers jumped from hundreds to tens of thousands per day.

Maybe there’s something about the viral distribution model that doesn’t fly in the mobile world, Shapiro thought. In epidemiology, he pointed out, researchers use a parameter called the basic reproduction number to gauge whether a viral outbreak will spread or die out. The corresponding number in the Internet world tells you how many people a given user will “infect,” on average: Shapiro gave some estimates for Facebook (6), Gmail (5), MySpace (4), and Twitter (1.5). He argued that Twitter hasn’t been spreading virally; it has used more conventional marketing through word of mouth and the press.

“Heterogeneity in the target population is the best protection to keep you from being infected by viruses,” he said. That means some people have different levels of resistance, different behaviors, different types of contacts, and so forth, so not everyone will get infected by, say, the latest flu bug.

And that same kind of variety that makes individuals different is exactly why mobile isn’t viral, he argued. He cited some survey stats to explain how fragmented this market really is: There are roughly 500 different types of handsets, about 30 per carrier; about two-thirds of people (65 percent) don’t have a data plan; three out of four people (75 percent) are on a different carrier from you; almost that many (70 percent) don’t have a smartphone. And despite all the attention it gets, 98 percent of mobile users don’t have an iPhone. (iPhone apps are definitely not spreading virally, Shapiro said. He also argued that Tegic’s T9 predictive texting did not spread virally; it was pushed out by carriers and handset manufacturers in a dedicated partnership.)

“We will not see the Facebook, Gmail, or Yahoo of mobile until this changes,” Shapiro said. He added that he’s not advocating one standard mobile platform; he’s just saying how it is right now.

So his advice for mobile entrepreneurs and investors was:

—Be skeptical of anyone peddling viral marketing in mobile.

—Build a business model that doesn’t require big adoption.

—Pick a market segment that’s homogeneous. (Examples: BlackBerry corporate users, Silicon Valley techies.)

—Use ubiquitous technologies like WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and SMS texting.

—Wait… (”Things are getting better,” he said.)

Afterward, Shapiro said he thinks “Europe holds the future of the U.S.” Over there, wireless carriers have influence, but only about half of consumers get their services directly from carriers, versus about 90 percent in the U.S. “I think you’ll see the carrier role diminish,” he said, when it comes to mobile software.

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I sat in on a good venture capital panel yesterday at Mobile Northwest 2009 in Seattle. No huge arguments or chair throwing to speak of (we’ll see what we can stir up at the next few Xconomy Forums). But some solid and useful observations from Geoff Entress of Voyager Capital, and also a prominent Seattle-based angel investor; Adrian Smith of Ignition Partners in Bellevue, WA, an expert in telecom and wireless; and Puneet Tandon of Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA, who is looking to sign partnerships with top entrepreneurs in digital media and social networking. (You can also see some comments from mobile VC Tom Huseby’s keynote here.)

The panel was moderated by Tricia Duryee, the Seattle-based correspondent for mocoNews, a website that covers wireless telecommunications. Here are my quick “top three” takeaways from the discussion of the local mobile industry:

1. The panic may be over, but caution rules. Entress says he’s added nine companies to his portfolio this year, out of a total of 32 he’s involved in (and six mobile firms, including TravellingWave, Swype, Dashwire, and Treemo). “We’re definitely not out of the woods yet,” he said. “But 2010 might be a good year for selling companies.”

2. It’s not all about the iPhone. Entress and Smith pointed out that Apple has only 17 percent of the smartphone market, so there’s plenty of opportunity on other platforms, like the BlackBerry and devices that use Windows Mobile. “Apple has a huge amount of mindshare,” Smith said, “but the critical thing is the development environment around [mobile applications].” Tandon agreed, saying, “Barriers to doing business with us [carriers] perhaps have been lowered.” Entress stressed the importance, especially for startups, of trying to avoid “getting locked into any one carrier, handset, or operating system.”

3. Watch advertising, input technologies, and connected devices. Tandon pointed out that by sometime next year, there are projected to be 3.3 billion Web-connected devices, and 70 percent of them will be connected via wireless operators. That means carriers will be willing to pay to know “who are the social influencers in your subscriber base,” he said. Smith and Entress said Google’s $750 million acquisition of AdMob signifies that mobile advertising is here to stay—but that the deal was the “first one out” (like YouTube for video), so don’t look for anything near that sort of valuation again. Entress added that he’s working with a number of startups selling new ways of inputting text on mobile devices (using speech recognition, touch-screen methods, and so forth). For all our fancy gadgets, it seems we still struggle to communicate.

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Just when I thought venture deals, especially for software and tech companies, had headed south for the winter (or longer), the Northwest erupted with a slew of financings in the past week.

—But first, some serious biotech. Kirkland, WA-based OVP Venture Partners led a $30 million Series B round for Fate Therapeutics, a San Diego-based stem cell company with ties to the University of Washington, as Luke reported. Existing investors Arch Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, and Venrock Associates also participated in the funding, as well as three strategic corporate investors—Astellas Venture Management and Genzyme Ventures were named.

—Seattle-based DocuSign, a maker of software to automate and control the process of electronic signatures, received a strategic investment from Second Century Ventures, the VC fund of the National Association of Realtors. The funding amount was undisclosed, but the money will be used to accelerate and extend DocuSign’s efforts with real estate customers.

—Beaverton, OR-based Avnera pulled in an $8 million equity round from undisclosed investors, according to a regulatory filing. The company’s previous investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures, Intel Capital, and DAG Ventures. Avnera was founded in 2004, and designs novel chips for wireless audio applications.

—Seattle stealth startup Doxo raised $5.25 million in equity financing, according to a regulatory filing and media reports. The investors were not disclosed, but David Feinleib of Mohr Davidow Ventures was listed on the SEC form as a director.

—Bellevue, WA-based Enroute Systems, a developer of software that helps companies manage their parcel-shipping logistics, closed a Series A funding round worth $810,000 from Keiretsu Forum, Zino Society, Puget Sound Venture Club, and angel investors. Next up, Enroute is looking …Next Page »

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Seattle-based DocuSign announced today it has received a strategic investment from Second Century Ventures, the VC fund of the National Association of Realtors. The amount was undisclosed, but the cash will be used to speed up and extend DocuSign’s efforts with residential and commercial real estate customers. DocuSign was founded in 2003 and makes software to automate and control the process of electronic signatures.

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Tom Huseby says he’s finally able to go home and not worry about seeing his family’s savings stuffed under his mattress. “The panic is over,” he says. “All of a sudden, things are getting a lot better. It doesn’t feel much better now, but it is.”

Huseby, a noted Seattle-based venture capitalist with SeaPoint Ventures, Oak Investment Partners, Hunt Ventures, and Voyager Capital (and the Godfather of what we’ve been calling the “Qpass mafia”), was giving his 30,000-foot view of the economic landscape and VC market at today’s Mobile Northwest 2009 conference in Seattle. He also drilled down into some of the most pressing challenges in the mobile space, as well as what the startup opportunities are. Just a few highlights here:

“Unemployment is going to slow growth across any consumer business. If you’re in mobile, I hate to tell you, but you’re in the consumer business. I do think there will be liquidity in mobile startups,” Huseby says. “Most startups are going to have to earn it the old-fashioned way, they’ll have to grow over a long time. You’re going to have to survive during a roller coaster ride. Every single company will have to go rushing to the bottom, and then do the slow, clanking ride to the top.”

In terms of startup opportunities, it helps to think in terms of what wireless carriers need. Huseby calls himself “fairly carrier-centric.” As he puts it, they are big customers that are predictable (once you understand them) and they generate huge amounts of cash. He laid out the top three challenges for carriers today—absolutely critical to understand if you’re an entrepreneur trying to get their attention with a new product.

—Bandwidth. There’s “tremendous pressure on carriers” to provide more bandwidth to support people’s exploding need for data connectivity wherever they go, Huseby says.

—Costs of bandwidth. “Oh my God, how are you going to pay for it?” he asks. With such a competitive market, Huseby thinks costs for consumers will actually go down. “I think they’re not going to get the money from us, they’re going to have to get it from advertising. Advertising revenue will absolutely help pay for the bandwidth.” (The problem is that mobile advertising revenue is still relatively small and doesn’t usually go to carriers.)

—Holding onto consumers. “If they’re going to pay for it with advertising, they need to get a much firmer grip on their customers,” Huseby says. He sees this as a crucial issue for the coming decade. “The next viral social network has to work hard to make [ad revenues] accrue to them. Carriers have to be very conscious of the demographics of their customers. They have to get their customers anchored in.”

After his talk, I had a chance to ask Huseby about some other areas of interest, like mobile search. He says he’s generally staying out of that space, but is looking at location-based services from the perspective of retail stores and local advertising.

We’ll have more from the conference soon, so watch this space.

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A consumer tech company has scored one of the bigger equity financing rounds in the Portland area this fall. Beaverton, OR-based Avnera, a fabless semiconductor company that makes chips for wireless audio applications, has raised about $8 million in equity financing out of a total offering of $10 million, according to a regulatory filing with the SEC. The investors in the current round were not specified, and e-mails seeking confirmation of the deal sent to Avnera and previous investors were not immediately returned.

Before the latest round, Avnera had raised about $42 million in funding. Its original investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Jafco Ventures. Other investors joined in later rounds, including Intel Capital, DAG Ventures, Altien Limited, Panasonic Ventures, Polycom, and BestBuy. Most recently, Avnera raised a $14.7 million Series C round in September 2007.

The current filing lists as company directors Rob Chandra and Umesh Padval of Bessemer, John Walecka of Redpoint, and John Miner, formerly of Intel Capital (now with Pivotal Investments).

Avnera was founded in 2004, and is led by CEO, chairman, and co-founder Manpreet Khaira. Its technology involves advanced circuit design techniques to put things like radio frequency electronics, power management systems, audio data converters, and programmable signal processors onto a single silicon chip. That can help make audio accessories cheaper and have better sound quality in computers, iPods, home entertainment systems, and mobile devices. Avnera’s customers include Logitech, Creative, Panasonic, Vizio, and Sanyo.

Back in June, Eric Rosenfeld of Capybara Ventures and the Oregon Angel Fund told Xconomy that Avnera was one of the leading lights in Portland’s semiconductor scene. “They’re doing very well,” he said at the time. “Hopefully they’ll be the one that revives people’s confidence locally.”

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We’ve all been wondering how the Adobe layoffs, reported earlier this week, may affect the Seattle area—especially given the slew of other recent cutbacks in the local tech industry. Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), which is headquartered in San Jose, CA, has a strong presence in Seattle. As of recently, it employed some 500 people, focused on product development, operations, and advanced technology and research, at its Fremont offices.

Well, one prominent executive who’s leaving the company locally is Bill McCoy, Adobe’s general manager of ePublishing Business. McCoy is Adobe’s main e-book person. He made key contributions to Adobe’s PostScript and PDF technologies, and his team has helped lead projects like Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, and Adobe InDesign. He’s on the board of the International Digital Publishing Forum, and has been heavily involved in the EPUB standards movement. (You can read more about McCoy at TeleRead.org.)

In a blog post this week, McCoy said he’s leaving Adobe “in the near future” to pursue other opportunities yet to be determined. “I will be taking a little bit of time off, but there is no doubt that I’ll continue to be involved in the future of digital books, especially where that future intersects with web standards and open source,” McCoy writes. “I believe that Adobe will continue to play a critical role as an enabler of interoperable solutions, but I also believe that the community needs to stay vigilant to ensure that for-profit corporations don’t just talk the talk about being open, but also walk the walk.”

It sounds like Adobe is overhauling its efforts in the area, as its competition with Amazon and other e-publishing companies heats up. In a blog post, Adobe said it “has made the decision to expand its investment in digital publishing, creating a new organization focused on delivering products to increase digital revenue opportunities for book, newspaper and magazine publishers. This organization will combine the efforts of Adobe’s eBook business responsible for the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, and PDF and EPUB authoring support in Adobe InDesign with Adobe’s digital newspaper and magazine efforts.” The company added, “We are particularly excited about what we have in store for 2010. We plan to further our reach to emerging mobile reading platforms to allow readers to read anywhere, on any device.”

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Early-stage tech financings are still chugging along, it seems. On the heels of yesterday’s news of a $5.25 million financing of Seattle stealth startup Doxo, I checked in with Keith McCall of Bellevue, WA-based Enroute Systems, a maker of parcel-shipping management software, to hear the latest on his company’s recent financing.

McCall, the company’s founder and CEO, says Enroute has closed an oversubscribed Series A round worth a total of $810,000. That includes more than $500,000 from Keiretsu Forum Northwest earlier this year, and a new investment (as of October) from W.R. “Ford” Smith, the founder of PetSmart. Other investors include Zino Society and Puget Sound Venture Club. (The Series A round also includes $60,000 that Enroute won in Zino Society’s investment forum this fall.)

Enroute makes a Web-based software platform that helps businesses choose the cheapest and fastest delivery service—international, national, or regional carriers—to ship their packages. McCall says the software reduces companies’ shipping costs by about 30 percent.

The startup has moved into new 4,500-square-foot digs in Bellevue—near the Burgermaster and Microsoft’s original offices—as of the start of November. It is now up to a dozen employees and has signed more than 50 business customers, including Zumiez, Natural Partners, Renton Western Wear, Theo Chocolate, BikeWagon.com, and Lumber Liquidators.

McCall, who previously founded Seattle-based e-mail and communications management firm Azaleos, says he expects Enroute to be profitable in the first half of next year, and is now focused on expanding its customer base.

With that in mind, he is already getting ready to raise more money. “For those investors who would like to join our existing angel investors today, we are immediately opening a $500K convertible note, which we anticipate converting to a Series B offering in 2010,” McCall says. He adds that the next formal capital raise “is targeted as a $3 million Series B.”

McCall says that next financing round will be focused on expanding the company’s shipping-management services to Asia and Europe. “We’re interested in continuing our momentum,” he says. “There’s huge opportunity for us to significantly reduce cost for businesses of all sizes.”

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Seattle-based Doxo, a stealthy tech startup, has raised $5.25 million in equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. The funding was reported by Northwest Innovation and TechFlash. The investors were not disclosed, but David Feinleib of Silicon Valley-based Mohr Davidow Ventures is listed on the SEC form as a director. Doxo was started by members of the “Qpass mafia” (former executives at Seattle-based Qpass), including Steve Shivers and Roger Parks.

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Well, this does nothing to change the downward trend of early-stage software financings, but it’s good news nonetheless. Seattle-based Redfin, the online real estate broker and information discovery service, has announced a $10 million Series D funding, led by new investor Greylock Partners, the Silicon Valley venture firm formerly based in the Boston area. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan Capital, and The Hillman Company also participated in the round, which brings Redfin’s total funding to $30.8 million.

Redfin says it will use the cash “to scale its infrastructure for delivering extremely high levels of customer service, to expand into new markets and to invest in research and development.”

By most accounts, the company has had a very strong year, even as the real estate market has contracted and valuations have fallen. Redfin has generated its first profits, shipped what it says is the highest-rated iPhone app for real estate, and increased its website visits by more than 200 percent.

Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s CEO, talked about the significance of the new funding, and hinted at a goal of taking the company public. “Greylock’s experience developing some of the Internet’s most recognized consumer brands as well as its appetite for building large-scale public companies are a perfect fit for our ambitions,” Kelman said in a statement. “We believe that our ability to invest in technology and our consumer-first commitment give us a shot at reinventing a very fragmented, sales-driven real estate industry.”

Redfin was founded in 2002 and serves home buyers and sellers with real-estate listings, maps, analytics, tax records, and other information. Besides Seattle, it has operations in California, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington DC, and other metro areas. Redfin recently rolled out a new version of its website, which includes near-real-time data and photos of recent home sales, as well as links to blog discussions of listings, all on a national scale.

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The teams behind Microsoft’s Bing and Wolfram Alpha announced today they have teamed up to enhance Bing’s search results across topics like nutrition, health, and advanced mathematics. Financial terms weren’t given, but the partnership gives Bing users access to Wolfram Alpha’s advanced algorithms and curated data. The move fits with Bing’s goal of helping people make decisions more efficiently. Led by Stephen Wolfram, the renowned physicist and mathematician, Wolfram Alpha debuted in May with the goal of making “all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.”

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