ReadWriteWeb

AboutUs, the wiki that's working to capture detailed information about every site on the Web, has secured $5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Voyager Capital with a $2.5 million investment.

How does a small startup secure capital in such turbulent economic times? Being profitable helps - something AboutUs achieved by mid-year 2008. The company is forecasting continued growth this year. CEO Ray King says the company is targeting $5 million in revenue for 2009. The primary source remains advertising, but the online marketing services AboutUs sells - including content creation and custom page development - continue to gain traction.

In downturns there is a "flight to safety". Typically you would put Venture Capital (VC) at the risky end, with something like a Money Market Fund at the safe end. Well, today even the safest stuff is looking scary, thanks to the games that the financial engineers have been playing. So maybe investing in a real business that disrupts the old order with a fundamentally new value proposition is actually the safest thing to do. That is "Real Venture Capital (RVC)". But RVC is very, very different from "Momentum Venture Capital" (MVC). MVC is under a significant threat.

We published the first A-Team post in October, when only three web tech ventures got through our qualifying criteria: a minimum of $1 million in Series A funding from an institutional VC. Well you may not have noticed, but on one count the economy got better in November. In November, eight deals got through our filter.

However, we've also lowered our cut-off to $0.5 million. Tougher times lead to smaller rounds, which is not necessarily a bad thing because tough times force you to do more with less money. This got our list up to nine deals in total for November.

We published the first A-Team post in October, when only three web tech ventures got through our qualifying criteria: a minimum of $1 million in Series A funding from an institutional VC. Well you may not have noticed, but on one count the economy got better in November. In November, eight deals got through our filter.

However, we've also lowered our cut-off to $0.5 million. Tougher times lead to smaller rounds, which is not necessarily a bad thing because tough times force you to do more with less money. This got our list up to nine deals in total for November.

We like to report good news, not just because it makes us all feel good, but because when a company is doing something positive during a downturn, it indicates something pretty interesting about that company. That is why Jobwire reports on new hires when all the other news is about layoffs. In that same spirit, The A-Team will be a monthly wrap-up of all the Series A VC financing rounds in web technology. To close a Series A VC round these days, you have to be pretty special.

We like to report good news, not just because it makes us all feel good, but because when a company is doing something positive during a downturn, it indicates something pretty interesting about that company. That is why Jobwire reports on new hires when all the other news is about layoffs. In that same spirit, The A-Team will be a monthly wrap-up of all the Series A VC financing rounds in web technology. To close a Series A VC round these days, you have to be pretty special.

Last week we asked our readers to help Twitter find a revenue model. We received a great amount of responses that we hope Twitter can take into consideration. From API's to the traditional ad-based model, we heard it all. The topic at hand and the amount of responses generated would let anyone know that a revenue model for Twitter is pretty important for various reasons. Fred Wilson of venture capital firm, Union Square Ventures initially thought otherwise, but has recanted his statements. Nevertheless, VC backers of Twitter have noted that revenue models for the micro-blogging service will be coming in the first half of 2009.

In downturns there is a "flight to safety". Typically you would put Venture Capital (VC) at the risky end, with something like a Money Market Fund at the safe end. Well today even the safest stuff is looking scary, thanks to the games that the financial engineers have been playing. So maybe investing in a real business that disrupts the old order with a fundamentally new value proposition is actually the safest thing to do. That is "Real Venture Capital (RVC)". But RVC is very, very different from "Momentum Venture Capital" (MVC). MVC is under a significant threat.

In our search for that rare beast - the profitable VC backed venture - I interviewed Eileen Gittins, the CEO of Blurb. Blurb does Print On Demand publishing for both consumer and professional markets. They compete with Lulu, which announced today that it is "laying off 24 workers at its North Carolina plant because of the slowing economy". That is 25% of their workforce and includes their President. Eileen and I both had the same reaction: "you mean you only just learned that hard times are coming?!".

In our search for that rare beast - the profitable VC backed venture - I interviewed Eileen Gittins, the CEO of Blurb. Blurb does Print On Demand publishing for both consumer and professional markets. They compete with Lulu, which announced today that it is "laying off 24 workers at its North Carolina plant because of the slowing economy". That is 25% of their workforce and includes their President. Eileen and I both had the same reaction: "you mean you only just learned that hard times are coming?!".