TakeLessons, an online service marketplace for music lessons in the US, has secured a $4 million round of venture capital financing, bringing the total investment into the company to more than $12 million. Triangle Peak Partners led the round with participation from Siemer Ventures and existing investors Crosslink Capital and SoftTech VC.

Optimal has secured $7 million in funding. New investors include DoubleRock, The Social Internet Fund, Siemer Ventures, Signal Ventures, John Pappajohn, Warren Adelman (former CEO of GoDaddy), Social Starts, James Altucher and Silicon Valley Bank. Paul Suh has joined the company as chief financial officer effective immediately.

Postcard on the Run has formed On The Run Tech, its parent company that specializes in building mobile apps that let users create customized physical products right from their mobile device. On The Run Tech recently closed a seed round of $1.3 million bringing the total amount of funding to date to $2 million. Selena Gomez, an investor and creative advisor to the company, participated in the new round along with Crosslink Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Siemer Ventures, Miramar Venture Partners, Newport Coast Investments and Double M Capital among other investors.

Playsino, a social casino game publisher on social networks and mobile platforms has secured $1.5 million funding. Investors in the round included Singapore-based IDM Venture Capital; Los-Angeles based Pacific Capital Group; Santa Monica venture capital firm Siemer Ventures and several angel investors such as Jordan Simons, managing partner and co-founder of merchant bank GCP and [...]

AppAddictive has raised $1.2 million in seed funding, according to a news report on TechCrunch. The funding comes from Great Oaks Venture Capital, Siemer Ventures, and Tholons, according to the report. NEWS STORY AppAddictive Raises $1.2 Million For Drag-And-Drop Facebook Page Builder & Ad Platform AppAddictive, a newly launched DreamIt-backed startup from the 2011 NYC class, [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]