Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has been taking heat in the press of late, could get a lift if Facebook acquires mobile navigation app maker Waze. Kleiner is among the VCs that have invested $67 million in the company since its founding in 2009.

Kilopass Technology, a provider of semiconductor logic non-volatile memory intellectual property has received an $8 million funding from a major consumer electronics licensee who wishes to remain anonymous until its own product launch. Kilopass is backed by BlueRun Ventures, Pitango Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners.

Thirst Labs, which provides a mobile app and Web platform to discover and share news, announced today that its Thirst news platform has been revamped and is now available to everyone online. Thirst Labs raised a $950,000 seed round from BlueRun Ventures and individual investors Steve Newcomb (co-founder of Powerset) and Jason Krikorian (co-founder of Sling Media). Thirst Labs co-founder and CEO Anuj Verma says the company plans to start working on raising a Series A round during the first quarter of this year.

Atlanta-based Kabbage, which provides capital to small and mid-sized online merchants, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. The company has now raised $56 million in total equity. The latest round was led by Thomvest Ventures, the venture arm of Peter Thomson, who’s also a director of Thomson Reuters (owner of peHUB). Joining in the round are UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Mohr Davidow Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, SV Angel and individuals Warren Stephens and David Bonderman.

Jamison joined the Menlo Park firm as a venture partner in November 2010 and was placed in his new role earlier this year. He continues to scout for investments in mobile and consumer Internet.

Peter Buhl, co-founding partner at BlueRun Ventures, jumped from investing in startups to helping to run one. The 12-year veteran investor joined AppCentral as chief operating officer.

A group of Silicon Valley VCs are betting that homegrown shopping networks will keep on growing in China. GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital, BlueRun Ventures and Zero2IPO recently, and quietly, invested a Series C round in Meilishuo, which operates a Chinese shopping social network and microblog for women. As part of the funding, Ray Hu, vice [...]

CommerceTel, a San DIego based mobile marketing company, announced today that David Jaques has agreed to join its board of directors and to serve as chair of its audit committee. Jaques was formerly the CFO of BlueRun Ventures and before that he served as CFO of PayPal. PRESS RELEASE: CommerceTel Corporation, an award-winning provider of [...]

When it comes to mobile investing, think picks and shovels, not the next Angry Birds. That’s the advice several seasoned venture capitalists offered a roomful of applications developers Thursday afternoon. Angry Birds-like successes are rare. Tools makers can supply building blocks to all comers. But rather than guide a ton of cash into the space, [...]

The rule of thumb is that private valuations trail public market valuations by about six months. So it remains to be seen how venture portfolios will adjust later this year in the wake of the summer’s uneasy financial environment. But as of last December, the portfolios of recent venture investments at the University of California [...]