Ignition Partners led a $20 million Series C round for cloud identity technology company Symplified. As a result, Cameron Myhrvold of Ignition Partners has joined its board of directors. Existing investors Allegis Capital, Granite Ventures and Quest Software also participated in the financing, which brings the company’s total funding to $38.8 million.

The American economy is a mess. Growth has been stuck at a tortoise-like pace for years. The unemployment rate continues to hover at nine percent or higher. And faltering research and development threatens not only innovation, but our future. The good news is there’s a fix for this: The U.S. government simply needs to invest [...]

Redwood City, Calif.-based Coraid Inc. has added $50 million in a new round led by Crosslink Capital. Existing investors Menlo Ventures, Allegis Capital, Azure Capital Partners and affiliates of Silver Lake, as well as new investors Seagate Technology and Kinetic Ventures also contributed. Coraid is a developer of Ethernet SAN technology.

California-based Axcient, a data backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery service to the Small and Mid-Sized Business (SMB) market, has raised US$15.5 million in new funding. The Series C round was led by Scale Venture Partners with previous investors Allegis Capital, Peninsula Ventures, and Thomvest Ventures participating, bringing the company’s total funding to date to US$33.5 million. Rory O’Driscoll, managing director, Scale Venture Partners, joins the board with this investment.

After decades of on-again, off-again forays into corporate venture capital, companies have turned their engines on again. Last year, technology-oriented corporations invested $1.9 billion in venture capital deals, up from $1.35 billion in 2009, and this brisk 40 growth rate is on track for a repeat performance this year. The corporate world realizes it has [...]

As the Q2 Exit Poll numbers released today show, the Internet is driving the exit activity. This is no surprise to Google and other large acquirers. The Internet titan, which racked up 48 acquisitions in 2010, is on a similar pace this year and is even rumored to be looking at bringing Hulu into the [...]

Allegiance Inc. has raised $12 million in Series B financing. New investor El Dorado Ventures led the round, which included funding from Rembrandt Venture Partners and Allegis Capital. The company, based in Salt Lake City, makes cloud-based technology to help companies better analyze and apply customer and employee feedback.

Irvine, Calif.-based ClariPhy Communications Inc., a developer of signal processors for optical networking, has sealed $14 million in new funding, led by by Nokia Siemens Networks. The new money will help ClariPhy expand deployment of its system-on-a-chip, the company said in a release. ClariPhy is backed by a stable of prominent venture investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Allegis Capital, ONSET Ventures and Pacific General Partners. The company previously raised at least $44 million.

Bickering between House and Senate lawmakers has put into limbo whether VC-backed startups will get a greater opportunity to procure contracts from federal agencies. At the center of the battle that could recast VC-backed companies’ ability to innovate in partnership with government bureaus is a fight between House and Senate lawmakers over funding provisions for [...]

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are feeling more upbeat about business conditions than they have at any time in the past three years, according to a survey of VC sentiment. An uptick in fund-raising and a more welcoming IPO market lifted spirits in the first quarter, boosting the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index to 3.91. [...]