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Signaling investors continued bullishness about mobile entertainment, two new companies have secured middle rounds of financing: mobile gamer Vollee and mobile video provider Quickplay Media.  The specifics:

Vollee
Founded 18 months ago, Vollee is developing game distribution technology that allows them to adapt, host and stream PC and Console games for play on mobile phones and portables over 3G Networks.  Based in Israel, and running with a staff of near 50, the company previously closed a $4m Series A round in March from Benchmark and Blue Run Ventures (BRV).  BRV Partner Yossi Hasson is also a co-founder of the company. 

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After spending eighteen months in “stealth mode,” and burning through a chunk of $17m in funding, a little Texas startup called Ripcode Monday came out of hiding with a bang.  The company, which has been developing a network appliance for encoding video data streams, formally introduced their product and also announced they’d signed a whale of a first customer: MySpace.

For every well run startup there is always one question, one market problem that they are aiming to fix.  For Ripcode it’s been about efficiency and cost effectiveness.  Their question was how can an enterprise which hosts Internet video re-encode the files in a cheaper and more efficient way. Click to Read More

Around industry a number of financings have closed in the past week.  Tallying it up and presenting them all at once, here’s the round up of who got cash:

Kewego –a European video sharing site based in Paris raised $6.9m in a second round led by Banxei venture Partners and CDC Enterprises.  The company has local video sharing sites in 10 European countries. They also provide digital signage, enterprise video syndication and advertising services.

Audiokinetic – a company providing game developers with software tools, notably middleware, for creating audio soundtracks for video games raised Click to Read More

Add social network Multiply to the list of well funded.  The company founded in 2003, which is focused on older users and those looking for a more closed environment to interact with those they already know rather than as a playground for making new contacts, pulled in $16m in a Series B Financing.   

The round was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners.  Point Judith Capital and previous Series A investors TransCosmos Investments also participated.

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There are all kinds of games built around the idea of six degrees of separation.  Probably the most famous is “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” a game that challenges you to connect two actors by their co-stars to Kevin Bacon in 6 moves or less. It’s so popular, in fact, there’s even a website that will make the connections for you.    Another version of the game ought to be: Six Degrees of Electronic Arts.

The gaming industry is currently popular with investors but especially, it seems,  if a new company includes alumni from Electronic Arts.   Looking back over recent deals, the EA connection seems to be everywhere.

First, there are two newly funded companies: Media Machines and Rocketon, both have leadership schooled on the EA campus.

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Going into the holiday weekend, two Santa Monica companies joined the ranks of the newly funded.  Jacked, an interactive Internet TV-companion platform has raised $6.5m and gaming company Trilogy Studios has closed a $3.2m second round.

Trilogy Studios was founded in 2005 by gaming industry veterans. Click to Read More

Just a week ago, I wrote, half in jest that 8 figure deals were becoming increasingly common and frighteningly familiar Internet video startups.  I didn’t think I’d be reiterating the point again so soon.  But, turns out, another round of extreme funding has already come down the pipeline. I thought wrong.

Besting Veoh’s $25m and Metacafe’s recent $30m but shy of Joost’s $45m and Brightcove’s $59.5m, French-based video sharing site Dailymotion has raised a $34m second round.   The round was led by European firms Advent Venture Partners (London) and AGF Private Equity (Paris).  On top of $9.5m contributed last October, it brings the total funding raised for the site in one year to $43.5. 

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