Early-stage venture capital roundup

Compiled by Alastair Goldfisher

SAN FRANCISCO (Private Equity Week) - Milo.com, which operates an online shopping website focused on local stores, raised $4 million in funding last week.

The Series A round was led by True Ventures and more than a dozen returning individual investors, including Ron Conway, an early investor in Google and PayPal; Keith Rabois, an investor in YouTube, Yelp and LinkedIn; and Aaron Patzer, founder of Mint.com. The company raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from the angel investors last year.

The startup, which lets users search the inventories of local stores to see whether they have products they're looking for, was started out of frustration, according to co-founder and CEO Jack Abraham.

"I do the majority of my shopping locally, and it's hard to figure out what's available without driving to the stores or calling them," he said.

Milo's search engine scans the inventories of participating retailers, such as Best Buy, Ikea and BevMo and provides users an option to purchase the product online if it's not available in a nearby store.

Milo was one of several startups that raised early stage funding last week. Among the others are the following:

BIOTECH

Ligon Discovery Inc.

Cambridge, MA

www.ligondiscovery.com (www.ligondiscovery.com)

Amount/Round: $1M/seed stage

Investors: incTank Ventures

Details: Develops drugs that use small molecule microarray technology. The company was founded by Patrick Kleyn, Angela Koehler and Benjamin Ebert, with technology licensed from Harvard University and MIT's Broad Institute. Christian Bailey, general partner at incTank, will join Ligon's board.

Receptos Inc.

San Diego, CA

www.receptos.com (www.receptos.com)

Amount/Round: $25M /Series A

Investors: ARCH Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, Lilly Ventures and Venrock

Details: Develops imaging techniques that aid researchers in drug discovery efforts. The technology, which captures images of the G-protein coupled receptor, was developed by scientists with The Scripps Research Institute and named among the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year by Science Magazine in 2007.

CONSUMER INTERNET

Milo.com

Palo Alto, CA

www.milo.com (www.milo.com)

Amount/Round: $4M /Series A

Investors: True Ventures (led) and individual investors, including Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, Jeff Clavier, Aaron Patzer and Aydin Senkut.

Details: Operates an online shopping engine focused on local merchants. Jon Callaghan, general partner of True Ventures, has joined the board.

HEALTH CARE

NextImage Medical Inc.

San Diego, CA

www.nextimagemedical.com (www.nextimagemedical.com)

Amount/Round: $5M /Series A

Investors: Chrysalis Ventures.

Details: Provides services for outpatient diagnostic imaging through its network of imaging facilities and radiology providers.

SOFTWARE

ClearMomentum

Rochester, NY

www.clearmomentum.com (www.clearmomentum.com)

Amount/Round: NA/Series A

Investors: Trillium Group

Details: Develops financial analytics and reporting software-as-a-service. Kenneth Kaisen, a former vice president and GM at Xerox and Avaya Inc., has joined the company as President & CEO. Kevin Phelps, general partner of Trillium Group, and Trillium Executive Partner James Stoffel, have joined the board.

STORAGE

QuorumLabs

Fremont, CA

www.quorumlabs.com (www.quorumlabs.com)

Amount/Round: $5.3M/Series A

Investors: Themis Computer

Details: Develops a business continuity appliance.

WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

Roam Data Inc.

Boston, MA

www.roamdata.com (www.roamdata.com)

Amount/Round: $6.5M/Series B

Investors: Ingenico Ventures (the investment arm of French company Ingenico SAS) and individual investors, including payment industry veteran George Wallner (founder and former CEO of Hypercom)

Details: Develops a mobile software development platform.