New York-based DoubleVerify, which has technology for tracking and verifying online advertising, says today it has raised $33 million in a Series C round of financing led by JMI Equity, based in San Diego and Baltimore, and the Bay Area’s Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). Existing investors Blumberg Capital and First Round Capital joined in the round, which brings DoubleVerify’s cumulative financing to $47 million.

DoubleVerify, launched in 2008, is a private online startup that plays a similar role to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the nonprofit media group that conducts independent audits of print circulation and readership for advertisers. Using its proprietary software technology, DoubleVerify tracks online advertising to make sure ad campaigns comply with advertisers’ terms, conditions, and buying guidelines. The startup says corporate advertisers, marketing agencies, and others use its technology.

As part of the financing deal, Bob Nye of JMI’s Baltimore office and IVP general partner Dennis Phelps joined DoubleVerify’s board.

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Seattle-based social media monitoring startup Buzzlabs, started by former Microsofties Philip Lee and Dou Shen, has been acquired by West Hollywood, CA-based CityGrid Media. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Buzzlabs’ service helps businesses sort and analyze the cacophony of user-generated content flooding the Web. CityGrid said Buzzlabs’ offering will be added to its existing service over the next three to six months. CityGrid—formerly known as Citysearch—already operates Seattle-bred restaurant search app Urbanspoon. CityGrid is a unit of IAC (NASDAQ: IAC), the Barry Diller-headed company that once owned Expedia.

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Interesting hiring news in the Seattle-area innovation community: Rebecca Lovell of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network is now chief business officer at GeekWire, the tech-news startup run by former TechFlash and Seattle P-I journalists John Cook and Todd Bishop. Lovell has been executive director of NWEN for just over two years, and worked as program director for the Alliance of Angels for nearly three years before that. Lovell is a fixture on the Seattle tech and startup scene, recently overseeing the “First Look” forum that showed off a diverse collection of startups to investors. Cook writes that Lovell will continue working part-time with NWEN as it searches for a new director. It’s more evidence of the fertile ground for online news companies in Seattle—GeekWire and Xconomy cover a lot of the same territory, and there are good examples of neighborhood news blogs, political sites, and the online-only P-I.

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San Diego’s Active Network says today it’s planning a nationwide roll-out of its Schwaggle deal program, beginning this month with targeted offerings three times a week on fitness products and services, golf tee times, and other event registrations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The Active Network, which operates Active.com, launched its Schwaggle deals in San Francisco in January with a registration discount on the city’s 12K Bay to Breakers run and other offerings. Active.com plans to add Schwaggle to 25 major markets by year-end, and in select international markets next year.

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More turbulence at Seattle’s RealNetworks: President and Chief Executive Bob Kimball has resigned, the company says today. Kimball had only been in the job since January 2010, although he’d been with RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) for about a dozen years.

Kimball replaced founder Rob Glaser as CEO and presided over a period of big change: The company spun off its Rhapsody music joint venture with MTV, laid off workers, and launched Unifi, a cloud-based consumer service for storing music, photos and video. In February, Kimball said the elimination of about 130 jobs marked the end of Real’s restructuring period.

That included Real doubling down on its core offerings—digital media management for consumers, and media software-as-a-service for wireless carriers. Real also acquired Canadian company Backstage Technologies as it sought to capitalize on social games for the GameHouse subsidiary. In Monday’s announcement, Kimball said the company’s transformation “removed more than $70 million in annualized operating expenses.”

You have to wonder what leads to a resignation after such a short period of time, but working through that much change and putting the company on a path forward would actually seem like a decent point to seek a different gig—or a new person to lead the company. That seems to be official line for today, but it doesn’t sound totally unbelievable.

Glaser has moved on to Accel Partners, the Silicon Valley-based VC firm, as a part-time venture partner focusing on digital media, social media, and mobile service investments. He remains Real’s chairman, but tells GeekWire’s Todd Bishop that he won’t be returning as CEO. Glaser praised Kimball in the company’s statement: “He has established a strong foundation upon which the company can build in the years to come.” Executive Vice President Mike Lunsford has been named interim CEO while the company’s board searches for Kimball’s permanent replacement.

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Kim Folsom tells me that she tried using video for education in the late 1990s at Seminar Source, a venture-backed, Web-based software company in San Diego that tried to take advantage of the fact that it’s easier for many people to learn visually. “You could do video over the Web, but it wasn’t the best,” she says.

Years later, Folsom went to work as a vice president and general manager at DriveCam, the San Diego company that uses a video camera “event recorder” mounted on the windshields of delivery trucks and other fleet vehicles. The device helps fleet managers promote safety by identifying risky driving behaviors it records while staffers are behind the wheel.

These days Folsom is taking another swing at online video. She’s now the founding CEO of ShowUhow, a San Diego-based startup she founded in mid-2007 to create and host online video instruction guides that already are replacing printed instruction manuals. The video guides demonstrate how to assemble everything from Little Tikes’ riding toys and toddler furniture to consumer electronics from Radio Shack.

Kim T. Folsom

ShowUhow’s Web-based video instruction guides are far easier to follow and understand, she says, than printed assembly instructions that are written by too many people who don’t use the products, or whose directions leave too much open to interpretation.

“Newer smart phones and YouTube have helped make video adoption much more ubiquitous than it used to be,” Folsom says. With the iPhone, Folsom says users can find … Next Page »

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Lycos, a Waltham, MA-based maker of online search and media tools, was bought for $36 million by Ybrant Digital, the companies announced today. Ybrant, a digital marketing company headquartered in India, purchased Lycos from Daum Communications, a Korea-based company that in 2009 reorganized Lycos, which had been one of the most trafficked and most profitable Web portals during the Internet boom of the late 1990′s. Ybrant says the purchase of Lycos will help it provide new products for local advertising.

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Everyone has their own green environmental “a-ha” moment. Maybe it’s seeing birds drowning in oil, or paying $4 a gallon for gas, or reading about the plastic trash heap the size of Texas swirling around in the Pacific Ocean. For Susan Hunt Stevens, it was discovering her young son had serious food and environmental allergies, which prompted her to examine which ingredients and toxins were causing the health problems.

Her discovery came back in 2007, and it roughly coincided with Stevens and her family moving into a 19th-century Victorian home outside of Boston. So, in part to create a better living environment for her family, she decided to do a major “green renovation.” This effort has included generating electricity from waste energy (boiled water), using light-emitting diodes and compact fluorescent lamps for lighting, buying energy-saving appliances and plywood cabinetry made without formaldehyde glues, insulating the roof with healthy spray foam, installing bamboo shades and cork floors, using low-flow faucets and toilets, composting kitchen waste, and so on.

Along the way, Stevens decided to blog about the experience. She knows a thing or two about online media and consumer marketing, having been a longtime senior executive with The New York Times and Boston Globe, where she oversaw the news site Boston.com, among other things. [Disclosure: Stevens joined Xconomy’s board of directors last month---Eds.]

But when she originally started blogging about green issues, she got questions from readers about the industry that she couldn’t answer. That started her on the road to taking classes at the Boston Architectural College, where she learned cutting-edge green design.

Stevens is now the founder and CEO of Practically Green, a stealthy Web startup based in Boston that combines many of the things she has done in her career. I sat down with her last week to talk about the company and its significance to green sustainability issues, online business models, and technology trends like social networking and videogame mechanics.

The first thing to know about Practically Green is that it’s not just another “green content” site, or how-to blog about sustainability and the environment. Instead, think of it as being like Foursquare or FarmVille for the green lifestyle, mixed with WeightWatchers.com in terms of accessibility and support networks. And throw in a little Amazon.com and TripAdvisor for consumer reviews and e-commerce. The site uses social networks, gaming mechanics, and expert content to help consumers figure out “how green” they are, find reputable green products and services, and connect with other like-minded people so as to stay motivated to live a greener lifestyle. The big idea is to help consumers lead healthier lives, while also aiding the environment—and saving on their electric bill.

It’s also an intriguing example of the “gamification” trend we’ve been reporting on lately, whereby consumer websites and companies are trying to boost traffic, engagement, and customer loyalty … Next Page »

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The noble cause of technology innovation is a great race. Just look at Aptera Motors, which appeared to be running out of cash last fall as it laid off much of its workforce. Now—after refueling with $10 million in VC funding—the Vista, CA, carmaker revealed plans to hire 500 people for its new assembly plant in Oceanside, CA. Get that and the rest of your race updates here.

—Vista, CA-based Aptera Motors staged a comeback media briefing that dispelled worries about the startup automaker’s cash crunch—at least for now. Aptera just raised $10 million in venture funding and plans to raise more, CEO Paul Wilbur says. He also unveiled the latest version of the Aptera 2e, an all-electric, two-passenger car, which was then shipped off to compete this summer in the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.

—With the increasing popularity of Internet streaming video, we saw a flurry of announcements from a variety of companies during the annual National Association of Broadcasters’ conference in Las Vegas. Qualcomm, for example, announced plans to add Web-based content and social media tools to its satellite-based mobile TV service-–and to allow Flo TV customers to record TV shows on their mobile devices for later viewing. San Diego’s VMIX said it has broadened its relationship with Cambridge, MA-based Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM) by standardizing its online video capabilities with Akamai’s HD Network.

—Upon seeing the previous news, Sorenson Media Jacob Moon reminded me by e-mail that the Carlsbad, CA-based company has shown 40 percent revenue growth for the past two quarters. He added that its Internet video technology, including … Next Page »

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—Personalization based on predicted intent instead of past behavior (based on cookie).

—More robust “universal search:” Better results for text and descriptive searches on videos, pictures, inside games, and applications.

—GPS-based hyper-targeting of search results and advertising on smartphones.

—Ubiquitous and non-text search: Search as an integrated activity rather than a separate activity into videos, music, etc. Search on images, tones, smells, and not just text-based phrases and descriptions.

—3-D search: Search will have new display and navigation metaphors beyond text and html links on a flat white background.

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San Diego-based Metaplace co-founder Ralph Koster announced on his blog today that the venture-backed company is shutting down Metaplace.com, its user-generated content website, effective Jan. 1. Koster, the former chief creative officer at Sony Online, says the Metaplace website, which offers users an online marketplace and platform for building their own social networking rooms “just hasn’t gotten traction.” Koster says the company itself isn’t going away, but he provides no details. The Metaplace website identifies its investors as Waltham, MA-based Charles River Ventures, Palo Alto, CA-based Cresendo Ventures, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz.

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Mochila, an online startup that aggregates syndicated media content and provides Web-based services to media companies, has raised about $1 million of a targeted $2 million investment round, according to a recent filing with government regulators. The Carlsbad, CA-based Internet venture has raised about $30 million since it was founded in 2001. Mochila says its existing investors include the privately held Greenspun Corp. of Las Vegas, NV, Belo, Charles River Ventures, Mission Ventures, and Jerry Colonna, a prominent New York venture investor.

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San Diego serial entrepreneur Michael Robertson is going to have to find something else to do now that Gizmo5, the VoIP (voice-over-Internet-protocol) company he founded in 2003, has become part of a certain search giant to the north. We have that news and more.

—Google confirmed that it’s buying San Diego-based Gizmo5, a six-year-old company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. The service will become part of the Google Voice number-unification service. Google did not disclose the purchase price, which media reports put at about $30 million. Gizmo5’s 6 million users will still be able to use the service, according to a statement. But Google is suspending new Gizmo5 signups, and existing users can no longer sign up for a call-in number.

—Platformic, a Web-based startup that enables customers to create and manage their own websites, said it is adding social media capabilities. The two-year-old San Diego-based company, which has targeted broadcast companies, says its expanded software-as-a-service product will help a broadcaster’s audience share photos, create their own user profiles, and create personal blogs on the broadcaster’s Platformic-powered website.

—Qualcomm’s No. 2 executive opened a regional mobile technology conference in San Diego by providing an overview of steps the chipmaking giant is taking to help ease the pressure on wireless network bottlenecks as mobile data traffic soars. Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) Chief Operating Officer Len Lauer told the 3G CDMA Americas Regional Conference that in the year 2014, worldwide mobile data traffic in one month will exceed mobile data traffic for all of 2008.

—Technology innovations that help companies optimize their profitability will likely lead to the next wave of analytics-based software startups, according to Stephen Coggeshall of San Diego-based ID Analytics. Another hot area will be analytics that can help forecast consumer behavior, said Coggeshall, who was participating in a discussion about new opportunities in analytics during the San Diego Software Industry Council’s annual forum on analytics.

—Israel’s Panoramic Power won $250,000 and became the first winner of the top QPrize, the incentive prize competition launched earlier this year by Qualcomm Ventures. Panoramic Power is developing energy-monitoring wireless technology that enables a company or institution to deploy so-called “smart grid” technologies within their existing facilities.

—The San Diego-based Cannon Power Group said is getting $19.4 million in federal renewable energy grants to help fund construction of a giant wind farm in eastern Washington state, about 110 miles east of Portland, OR. The $1 billion Windy Point/Windy Flats project is expected to generate enough electricity for 250,000 homes.

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San Diego-based VMIX, which specializes in video hosting technology and services, has raised $2 million in additional venture capital, according to a regulatory filing with the SEC today. When I checked in with VMIX about two months ago, CEO Mike Glickenhaus was in the second year of heading a new VMIX business strategy that’s focused on serving media companies. The company previously raised $21.5 million in venture funding from JK&B Capital, Mission Ventures, ATA Ventures, and Enterprise Partners. A spokesman says all four participated in the latest round as well.

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San Diego-based MojoPages, an online business directory that includes consumer reviews, said today it has raised $5 million in a Series A round of venture funding led by Austin Ventures, the venture fund based in Austin, TX. Founded in 2007, MojoPages says it plans to use the funds to expand its private-labeled local search solution for media properties, to attract new partners, and to develop its position in the expanding local search market.

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San Diego’s Loop’d Network, an online media network for action sports, has raised $800,000 in funding from its existing private investors and Southern California’s Tech Coast Angels, a new investor. The startup founded in late 2007 says it plans to use the funding to accelerate development of its innovative business strategy, which combines e-commerce, social merchandising, and online advertising. The Loop’d Network says it became profitable in December, 2008, and says it gets 750,000 unique monthly visitors, a 450 percent increase over the past six months, according to Comscore.

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One of the corollaries of hiring a new CEO is that sometimes the corporate mountain moves instead of the guy at the top, which may be a factor in an announcement today by Utah’s Sorenson Media.

The Salt Lake City-based developer of video compression and encoding software said today Sorenson has opened a new San Diego office that will now “serve as the central hub for the company’s business operations.”

The company founded in 1995 by James Lee Sorenson recently hired a new CEO, Peter Csathy, who has led several high-growth digital media ventures, including SightSpeed, (acquired by Logitech in late 2008) MusicMatch, (aqcuired by Yahoo! in 2004) and eNow, (acquired by AOL-TimeWarner in 2006.)

Sorenson Media’s Squeeze video compressor and optimizer software is one of the industry’s leading video encoding tools. Squeeze is one of the basic video software tools used by hundreds of millions of online surfers when they make or watch videos.

In Sorenson’s press release, Csathy says that the San Diego staff is expected to triple in number within a year. Sorenson Media currently has approximately 10 people in its San Diego office. The company has about 25 employees in Salt Lake City, and a spokesman says that staff also is expected to grow.

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The San Diego Venture Group today named TheSportsTV.com as the winner of its ninth annual “PitchFest” business plan competition. The startup, which was awarded $20,000, was among three finalists that made presentations to 280 people who attended the venture group’s annual meeting on Dec. 3.

TheSportsTV.com is a Web site that enables amateur athletes to post video and other information for coaches, college recruiters and professional scouts.

The competition was open to any Southern California-based startup that had raised less than $2.5 million in venture capital funding. A screening committee winnowed the field to 10 semi-finalists, who presented their business plans to a panel of venture capital judges in November. The panel selected two other startups as finalists: BidMyAtoZ.com, an online platform for bidding on household services; and LifeModeler Inc., which creates computerized models for orthopedic procedures.

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Venture and private equity firms apparently have clamped down on much of their funding activities in San Diego, but some local firms were able to take advantage of state and federal sources of cash last week. We also saw the Food and Drug Administration give Amylin a break and Qualcomm’s top executives offer their outlook for next year.

—One significant development for San Diego’s biotech community is that the state’s stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, opened its spigot for funding business ventures. The change is important because the institute has doled out more than $614 million through 229 grants since it was created in 2005, with all but one grant going to academic scientists at non-profit universities and research centers. Last week the institute awarded six grants to life science companies, and four with operations in San Diego got a total of more than $3.3 million.

—San Diego’s Cohu, which has traditionally been one of the most cautious players in the semiconductor industry, agreed to pay $80 million in cash to buy German rival Rasco from Dover Corp. Cohu makes thermal pick-and-place test handling machines used by chipmakers to test the performance of semiconductors with wire leads. Rasco specializes in gravity-feed machines that test smaller chips used increasingly … Next Page »

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A spokesman for San Diego’s DivX (NASDAQ: DIVX) confirms today the online digital video provider has laid off 21 employees, or nearly 10 percent of its San Diego workforce. We first saw the layoffs reported at TechCrunch. DivX disclosed earlier this month that its chief technology officer resigned, and it’s not clear if these cutbacks were part of that restructuring. DivX said in mid-November its financial results would be hurt after Yahoo terminated a two-year advertising contract.

Check for updates to Xconomy’s San Diego layoff tracker here.

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