Semantic web technology provider Radar Networks announced a $13 million Series B round of financing from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan Capital and new VC firm Velocity Interactive Group today.
In addition to the funding, Velocity partner Ross Levinsohn, the ex-Fox Interactive Media head best known for shepherding the MySpace acquisition, will join Radar's board of directors.
Radar Networks was founded by EarthWeb cofounder Nova Spivack (pictured) and raised its first round of funding in April, 2006. Spivack, reached in
London where he's speaking at the Financial Times conference, said that the influx of capital will be used to grow the company's new service Twine, a semantic organization tool which automatically tags and files information a user adds based on the item's content. Twine will also allow people to share and discover new information based on other users' interests.
Right now, the service has about 1,000 beta testers, with a wait list of about 30,000 people. Spivack says the company plans to start rolling out more access to the site in March.
By calling Radar a "semantic web" startup, Spivack explains, he is referring to Twine's ability to process information contextually, rather than relying on keywords or other structured information. The term has been batted around since web inventor Tim Berners-Lee first coined it in 2001, although it has never caught on among investors or customers. Nevertheless, Spivack believes that the time is right for semantic technology to deliver. "The semantic technology under the hood helps us represent data and ultimately makes it more portable," he said. According to Spivack, Twine "looks and feels like a Web 2.0 site, only a little bit smarter."
One side note: The funding announcement came a bit sooner than Radar Networks had been planning. Word leaked out about Velocity's investment when Spivack commented on a blog post about the internal politics of the new venture firm.
When asked about the circumstances of the news's release, Spivack seemed happy that the news was out there. "It was a story whose time had come.... I don't like keeping secrets," he said.
