Technically Speaking

I Love Rewards Inc., one of North America’s leading web based reward program providers, today announced that it has completed a $3.3 million Series A financing round with JLA Ventures, Laurence Capital and other angel investors.

I Love Rewards develops innovative web-based reward solutions for small and medium- sized businesses and Fortune 1000 companies. JLA Ventures is one of Canada’s leading venture capital firms that invests in growth companies that are focused on the Internet, digital media, e-commerce, communications security, mobile computing, and enterprise software companies.

Technically Speaking, I find it quite interesting that web sites and businesses that I have never heard of are making good money. $3.3 million is a good round, and proves that the web economy isn’t slowing down at this time. top diet pills

PlaySpan, a company that has a founder who is in the sixth grade just hooked it up with a $6.5 million Series A round. Read the details here. Sometimes you wonder “Why, and WTF?!?”

I know you are saying that to yourself right now. I’m sure it’s been minutes or hours since the post hit the online funding announcement circle, but hey, I work most of the time. I’m not in the sixth grade and haven’t been for a few decades now, so I guess that eliminates my chances of getting a $6.5 Million Series A.

Not that I have any ground breaking ideas, but as you saw by my last post, it’s not ground breaking ideas that sell. It’s basically about who you know, and who you drink with. I was lambasted the last time I said that, but it’s probably the truest statement you’ll read online today. Blast me if you want, but the truth is no further than the last sentence.

Why do some bands succeed and the best musicians in the world are in a bar band around the corner at your local dive bar? Case in point. Right now I’m listening to this now broken up band whose singer could be the next —– but she doesn’t have connections, and doesn’t know anyone, but at least I can listen to her sing. commercial collection agency

Technically Speaking, it’s one of those “it’s 2007 man, get with the program… ” posts.

Lending Club, the rapidly growing person-to-person lending service where people borrow and lend money among each other, bypass the banks, and get better rates, will announce tomorrow that it received $10.26 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners and Norwest Venture Partners. Lending Club will use the funds to expand its person-to-person lending community beyond its initial Facebook® application.

Since its May 24, 2007, launch on Facebook, the Lending Club community has reached more than 13,000 Facebook users and $750,000 in loans have been transacted among those users.

Lending Club is available to individual borrowers with credit scores at or above 640. Using Lending Club, borrowers can apply for personal loans of $500 to $25,000 to be funded by individual lenders. To date lenders have funded 80 percent of all loan requests. Lending Club handles user authentication, bank account verification, credit checking, credit reporting, funds transfers and collections.

Lending Club’s proprietary technology, LendingMatch, helps lenders quickly identify the best loans based on pre-set criteria such as credit worthiness, being friends on Facebook, sharing network affiliations, belonging to the same groups or by geographical location. LendingMatch instantly presents lenders with a diversified loan portfolio (composed of ten to thirty borrowers) reflecting these relationships as well as the lenders’ individual risk preferences.

Lending Club(TM) is an online lending community where people can borrow and lend money among each other, bypass banks and get better rates. Lending Club is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA.

Full Disclosure: Rex Dixon is the Director of Social Media Content for Lending Club.

More coverage: GigaOM
More coverage: VentureBeat
More coverage: Mashable
More coverage: TC
Other coverage in BusinessWeek - they didn’t link Lending Club correctly, but we all know where that is, right? Great article on the Subprime Meltdown from last Saturday.

Planypus, a site that lets friends make collaborative plans, announced the closing of its Series-A financing. The round was over-subscribed and funded exclusively by private investors.

The Planypus service is designed around a shared discussion space that allows participants to make plans together. Users are able to suggest and vote on event details, make comments, and invite friends. With the ability to access the service via website, a mobile phone interface, text messaging, calendars, and RSS, even the busiest of people always have a convenient way to stay updated with friends’ gatherings.

Planypus is the product of Fifteen Reasons LLC, a startup based in Chicago and Washington D.C.

Full Disclosure: Technically Speaking, the Planypus guys are sponsors of this blog; and I have asked, but they are not allowed to release the amount of the funding. They are also better set up than a lot of these so called services that seem to be more popular. My theory - just because they are in Chicago /Washington DC and not Silicon Valley, which I think is the other investors loss - I’m so glad that they were able to get their funding, as they are much more deserving of it than some of the pretenders out there that have already received money.

Covered earlier on Mashable.

Better than having to buy Da Vinci baby furniture!