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Many startups have hitched their wagons to Facebook Inc.'s application programming interface since it was opened last summer, but few share as close a connection as Chirp Interactive Inc. does. The startup, which has developed a screen saver filled with fresh social networking content from Facebook and Flickr, is set to reveal a seed funding led by Facebook stakeholder Greylock Partners as it enters public beta Thursday.

Chirp chief executive Eve Phillips, a former associate at Greylock, described the funding as "a large seed round" but declined to give an exact dollar amount. SoftTech VC, the firm led by Jeff Clavier, also participated in the round, alongside angel investors including LinkedIn founder and former PayPal exec Reid Hoffman, Digg CEO Jay Adelson, and Spinner.com and Grouper founder Dave Samuel.

Phillips says she played a role in Greylock's decision in 2006 to invest in Facebook, while noting she did not have a formal relationship with the social networking giant. Rather, she points to video-on-demand site Vudu (a Greylock investment led by partner David Sze, who also led investments in Facebook, LinkedIn, and Digg) and storage appliance developer Data Robotics as her major projects during her two years at the firm. Phillips left in November to form Chirp, but continues to operate her own firm, Inflection Venture Partners.

Chirp's product, Chirpscreen, delivers updated content from a user's friend profiles in Facebook and Flickr photo troves in screen-saver form. "From a consumer standpoint, it's hard to keep up with what's going on with your friends,"  Phillips says. "We're taking the screen-saver medium and turning it into Friend TV."

Chirp is designed entirely around available APIs from Facebook and Flickr, rather than through paid partnerships, but Phillips said other content, such as microblog posts, will eventually be available. The startup is also developing a desktop application, and Phillips notes that "there are a lot of other screens out there" that can be filled with content as well.

The startup hasn't yet established its business model, but Phillips says that advertising will likely be integrated among the many pieces of content popping up within the Chirp screen-saver. The company is listening to feedback from beta users, although Phillips wouldn't say how many people have tried it.

Clavier (right) described Chirp as a multitasker's dream. "This is such an attractive and fascinating application," he recently told me. "Sometimes, when you're on a phone call and it's not that interesting, the Chirp screen pops up and creates a competition for attention." - Paul Bonanos

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