955 Dreams, a next generation mobile publishing company has closed a $3.25M seed round. Investors in this round include 500 Startups, m8 Capital, Kapor Capital, Felicis Ventures and CrunchFund. The round is being led by 500 Startups and m8 Capital. 500 Startups is a Mountain View-based seed fund and startup accelerator program. m8 Capital is [...]

CrunchFund and the Tech Coast Angels ACE Fund have joined as investors in a recently completed funding round for YouMail, a provider of cloud-based, enhanced telecommunications services. This brings total investment raised by YouMail since 2007 to nearly $13 million. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., YouMail is also backed by VantagePoint Capital Partners and Siemer Ventures. [...]

San Francisco-based Gogobot, a social travel site, has raised $15 million in financing led by Redpoint Ventures. Battery Ventures and Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund also participated. The company will use the capital to expand its marketing, partnership and outreach efforts.

Codecademy, a site that teaches people how to become computer programmers, has sealed a Series A round from investors including Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly, SV Angel, Yuri Milner, Social+Capital Partnership, Thrive Capital, CrunchFund, Collaborative Fund, Founder Collective, and individual investors including Joshua Schacter, Vivi Nevo, Naval Ravikant and Sam Altman. The company reportedly sealed $2.5 million in the round, which will be used to bolster the development and design team.

San Francisco-based mobile commerce startup Zaarly has added Hewlett-Packard chief executive and former eBay chief Meg Whitman to its board. Zaarly has created a mobile, local marketplace that allows users to buy and sell with people in their neighborhoods. Zaarly has also announced a newly closed $14.1 million Series A funding round, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers‘ iFund and Sands Capital Ventures. Additional investors include CMEA, Venture51, Crunchfund, Marc Ecko, and Artists and Instigators. John Suliman of Sands Capital Ventures, and Chi-Hua Chien of KPCB have also joined the board.

What was hot on peHUB last week? The 10 stories that garnered the most pageviews from regular readers from Oct. 17 to Oct. 21 included posts about the biggest “dogs” in UTIMCO’s portfolio, the best-performing Ivy League Endowments and Carlyle’s next generation of leaders.

ONE: Woof! Woof! The 10 Biggest Dogs in UTIMCO’s Portfolio (slideshow) – by Lawrence Aragon
TWO: SLIDESHOW: Ivy League Endowments – Who Did Best In FY2011? – by Gregory Roth
THREE: SLIDESHOW: A Look At Carlyle’s Next Generation – by Bernard Vaughan
FOUR: Colorado PERA’s 10 Biggest Venture Capital Bets: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
FIVE: How Rotten Behavior by One Buyout Shop Spoiled an Opportunity for All Other PE Firms – by Luisa Beltran
SIX: SLIDESHOW: Top 10 European Buyout Funds Investing in U.S. 2010-Now – by Angela Sormani
SEVEN: Top 10 Deals in Q3 MoneyTree Raised $1B Combined–Slideshow – by Alastair Goldfisher
EIGHT: CrunchFund Wasn’t the Only Newbie Fund Raised in Q3; Here Are 18 Others (slideshow) (subscribers only) – by Lawrence Aragon
NINE: Purchase Price Multiples Grew In Q3: Report – by Steve Bills
TEN: Infographic: LP Temptation To Cross To the Dark Side – by David Toll

Happy Monday! If you want to catch up on news you may have missed last week, here are peHUB’s top 10 posts, as judged by the pageviews of our regular readers. Hot topics included Q3 fundraising, performance data from Colorado PERA, UTIMCO and New York pension funds, and a growing number of restaurant bankruptcies.

ONE: Slideshow: 15 Largest U.S.-based Venture Funds Raised in Q3 – by Lawrence Aragon
TWO: CrunchFund Wasn’t the Only Newbie Fund Raised in Q3; Here Are 18 Others (slideshow) – by Lawrence Aragon
THREE: Slideshow: Top-Performing PE/VC Funds Of 3 Big-Apple Pensions – by David Toll
FOUR: Top Ten Performing Funds From The Colorado PERA Venture Portfolio (slideshow) – by Mark Boslet
FIVE: Qwikster and 7 Other Terrible, Short-Lived Ideas (slideshow) – by Connie Loizos
SIX: Slideshow: Riverside’s Lessons from the Loo – by Buyouts magazine
SEVEN: Slideshow: Restaurant Bankruptcies Make PE Queasy – by Bernard Vaughan
EIGHT: Slideshow: UTIMCO in 17 Active Funds with IRRs > 25% (subscribers only) – by Lawrence Aragon
NINE: Gores Group Turns More Industry-Focused (subscribers only) – by Bernard Vaughan
TEN: Welsh Carson To Buy Triple Point Tech from ABRY – by Luisa Beltran

Michael Arrington’s controversial CrunchFund got the most press in Q3, but it didn’t break into the top five largest first-time VC funds raised during the period. In what was a weak quarter for overall VC fundraising, CrunchFund was one of 19 newbie that funds raised a combined $300 million, the lowest quarterly amount raised since [...]

Peer-to-peer car sharing service Getaround announced its $3.4 million seed round Monday. The San Francisco-based company is notable as the first investment for TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s controversial fund, CrunchFund. Other investors include Netflix founder Marc Randolph, Time Warner shareholder Vivi Nevo, Redpoint Ventures, and other undisclosed investors, the company said.

After tech blogger extraordinaire Michael Arrington announced yesterday that he launched a new venture fund, the blogosphere exploded with questions about conflict of interest. Specifically, how could Arrington remain editor of TechCrunch and write impartially about companies that he had backed with his new $20 million CrunchFund? AOL CEO Tim Armstrong initially dismissed the concern, [...]