Expect Labs, which recently came out of stealth to announce a voice and video calling app for the iPad that understands conversations in real-time, has raised $2.4 million in funding from KPG Ventures, IDG Ventures, Google Ventures, Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Quest Venture Partners. Several individual investors, including Naval Ravikant, Gil Elbaz and Don Hutchison, also invested. The San Francisco-based company expects to release its app, called MindMeld, in late October.

DogVacay, a community marketplace that matches dog owners in need of boarding services with local pet-care providers has attracted investment from Andreessen Horowitz. The venture capital firm joins existing investors including First Round Capital, Science Inc, Ben Ling, Ted Rheingold, Quest Venture Partners, and Baroda Ventures which backed the company in March. PRESS RELEASE DogVacay, [...]

Publicly traded communications company Polycom Inc. has acquired Vivu Inc., a provider of video collaboration software. Terms of the acquisition were not released. Vivu had reportedly raised venture financing from investors including Inventus Capital Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Quest Venture Partners.

GENWI said it raised a $4 million Series A round led by Nexus Venture Partners and joined by existing investors Inventus Capital Partners and Quest Venture Partners. The Los Altos, Calif., mobile publishing platform has now raised $5.1 million, including a $1.1 million seed round raised in 2010. PRESS RELEASE GENWI Raises $4 million from [...]

That was quick. Two-and-a-half years after closing its $90 million first fund, Russia-focused Almaz Capital Partners has returned all money to investors, and is looking to raise a second fund. Almaz, which has offices in San Francisco and Moscow, credits the fast return to a couple of recent exits. One was the aptly named Qik, [...]

Retailigence Inc., a startup hoping to break into the crowded yet promising mobile shopping market, said Friday it raised a $1.5 million seed round from several top pedigree investors. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has developed an application program interface, or API, to link mobile shopping applications to backroom data, such as inventory records. It [...]

Angel fundraising continues at a pretty good clip, but one angel says he isn’t interested in participating. At least not yet. “We’ve kind of contemplated it,” says super angel Marcus Ogawa, managing partner of Quest Venture Partners. But “I’m a little hesitant to do an LP-based fund.” That’s because the financial incentive isn’t there. Why [...]

A new seed-stage fund has quietly emerged in Silicon Valley called Quest Venture Partners. Based in Menlo Park and managed by brothers Andrew and Marcus Ogawa, the firm invests between $100,000 and $1.5 million in nascent digital media companies.

Here’s what’s unusual: the brothers, who were born and raised in Japan, hadn’t previously worked for a venture firm. They weren’t seasoned entrepreneurs before opening Quest. Thirty-seven-year-old Andrew spent more than a decade as a manager at Daimler AG, while Marcus, 30, had developed Web apps for various companies and was co-founder of a small, now-defunct startup called Enterprise Great Solutions.

Their backgrounds don’t necessarily stand out in competitive, clubby Silicon Valley. Yet some helpful introductions, an impressive array of co-investors, and deep family pockets have won them a seat at the table, and it’s a game they now intend to play for life, if they can play their cards right.