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Internet

Gaia Online
San Jose, Calif.-based Gaia Interactive Inc. has received a Series B strategic investment for an undisclosed amount from New York's Time Warner Inc. Gaia operates a virtual world for teenagers. Users socialize through customizable avatars, homes and cars. The money will be used to add new features and functionality. The Gaia Online community has nearly three million unique users per month. In December Gaia announced a partnership with Warner Bros. to make both free and pay-per-view versions of the studio's films available in Gaia's virtual cinemas. --G.W. 

PubMatic
PubMatic, an ad optimization platform for Web publishers has secured $7 million in venture financing. The financing was led by Nexus India Capital of Menlo Park, Calif., along with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, also of Menlo Park, and Helion Ventures Partners LLC of Mauritius. Palo Alto, Calif.-based PubMatic's technology is designed to automate and optimize ad inventory decision-making for publishers by identifying and recommending appropriate ad networks for a publisher and improving the layout of their ads. The platform is currently in beta and open to all Web publishers. The capital will be used for product development and the full launch of the platform. --G.W.

Software

Quaris
Business intelligence software developer Quaris Corp. has secured a $7.1 million Series A round. The initial funding was led by Foundation Capital of Menlo Park, Calif., and Partech International of San Francisco. The San Mateo, Calif.-based startup plans to use its new capital to drive market awareness of its tools through sales and marketing efforts and to bring in new hires for its management and engineering teams. Quaris is developing on-demand business intelligence software designed to deliver large scale analytic applications in order to improve the way companies deploy and leverage business intelligence. Delivered as Software-as-a-service application, the company's technology targets small and medium sized businesses that do not have the time or resources to deploy the heavy and expensive infrastructure. Its products are still beta-testing, but Quaris plans to formally launch them in early 2008. --G.W.

Carbon Design Systems
Acton, Mass.-based Carbon Design Systems Inc. has closed on $6 million in new funding. The company is a supplier of tools for the automatic creation, validation and deployment of virtual hardware models. Investors include Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Matrix Partners, both of Waltham, Mass., and Flagship Ventures of Cambridge, Mass. The capital will be used to hire engineers in order to enhance the company's product offerings. Carbon's system-level tools are used to create and deploy software models generated from Verilog and/or VHDL descriptions. --G.W.

Biotech

Arcion Therapeutics
Arcion Therapeutics Inc. of Baltimore has raised $8.8 million in Series A financing led by CMEA Ventures of San Francisco and InterWest Partners of Menlo Park, Calif. The biotechnology company is developing pain therapies. Its lead product, ARC-4558, is a treatment for alleviating moderate and severe pain associated with diabetic neuropathy. --G.W. n

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