Quora, a Q&A startup founded by several early Facebook employees, including former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo, has raised $11 million in a first round of funding. TechCrunch puts the valuation at a whopping $86 million, even though the site—which pitches itself as a “continually improving collections of questions and answers”—is…

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Chief Technologist Sam Pullara is leaving the company, capping off a week of high-profile departures. At Yahoo, Pullara was “responsible for ensuring that products we develop are competitive and provide compelling customer experiences by driving a dialogue between internal product groups, research and business leaders,” according to…

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Ventures is leading a round of funding in social music startup TuneWiki; HillsVen Capital, Novel TMT, Benchmark Capital and Intellect Capital Ventures (the venture fund of Nordic phone company TeliaSonera) also participated in the funding. TuneWiki, which started out as a desktop app and site nearly two…

San Francisco-based Boku has raised a sizable round of funding totaling $25 million to build a mobile-payments company that they believe can one day compete against financial institutions, like Mastercard, Visa, and even online providers, like Paypal. The year-old company has partnered with wireless carriers around the world to let…

Cloud-based online gaming startup Gaikai has raised $5 million in a first round of funding, per an SEC filing. The company declined to comment, but the filing lists Benchmark Capital’s Mitch Lasky as a director. Gaikai plans to let people play high-quality games on any computer without needing to install…

Riot Games has raised $8 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, FirstMark Capital, and Chinese online media company Tencent. Tencent is a new investor; it recently signed a deal to distribute Riot Games’ forthcoming multi-player online game, League of Legends, in China. Benchmark and FirstMark backed the L.A.-based startup with…

The deal activity in the content delivery industry continues to tick, as another new CDN gets funded, this time by two VC heavyweights: Cotendo has raised $7 million in its second round of funding, from Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital. It has been in incubation for a year, and received…

Micro-blogging service and media darling Twitter has raised its third round of funding. Co-founder Biz Stone announced the news in a blog post, listing Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners as lead investors; Benchmark confirmed the amount at $35 million, though TechCrunch, which broke the news, is reporting that it’s…

Career-focused social net Glassdoor.com has raised $6.5 million in a second round of funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures. Existing investors Benchmark Capital also participated. The Sausalito, Calif.-based startup gives job seekers a “real” view of what it’s like inside the companies they want to work for, via anonymous tips,…

Meanwhile, the widget economy is functioning in a parallel, oblivious universe: Widget distribution firm Gigya has received $11 million in its third round of funding. The round was led by DAG Ventures and included previous investors Benchmark Capital, First Round Capital, and Mayfield Fund. The round brings the Palo Alto…

Lithium Technologies, an Emeryville, CA-based provider of white-label social networking tools, has raised $12 million in its second round funding, led by Benchmark Capital. Benchmark joins Emergence Capital and Shasta Ventures, which co-led a $9 million first round in April 2007. The company, which has been around for almost seven…

This is the month of senior executives leaving the starts and big media and Internet companies: just yesterday the CEOs of Hearst and Hachette were circled out on the east coast. Meanwhile, on the west coast, Yahoo’s (NSDQ: YHOO) bleeding all over and now Facebook sees its VP of Product…

Grockit, a stealth startup developing an MMO for online learning, has raised an $8 million second round led by Integral Capital Partners and past backer Benchmark Capital. The company has previously raised $2.7 million, bringing its total haul to $10.7 million. All the company says for now is that it’s…

Red hot Move Networks, the heavily-backed provider of high quality online video streaming, has raised a huge $46 million third round led by Benchmark Capital, as well as Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO), Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) Interactive Media (a division of Comcast Corp.), and Televisa, making its entry into the crazy-money territory.…

Marin Software, a provider of web-based software to manage search marketing campaigns, has raised a $7.25 million second round led by Benchmark Capital. The company’s first round has not been announced. The SF-based start-up offers a browser-based tool called Marin Search Marketer that lets advertisers manage all angles of a…

Sausalito, CA-based social net Glassdoor has raised a $3 million second round led by Benchmark Capital, according to peHUB. The stealthy company has not previously announced its first round. Other than the fact that it was started by ex-Hotwire exec Robert Hohman, details on the company’s plans are limited. The…

Gigya, the online widgets tracker and analytics firm based in Palo Alto CA, has raised $9.5 million in a second round of funding from Mayfield Fund and two existing investors, Benchmark Capital and First Round Capital. Gigya’s technology allows widgets makers such as RockYou, and online publishers to Gigya monitor…

Updated below: Denver-based ManiaTV, a youth-based online TV network, has raised a $9.5 million third round from DAG Ventures, reports PE Hub. Previous backers Benchmark Capital, Centennial Ventures and Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Capital also joined. The company had previously raised $17 million, bringing its total raise to $26 million since…

FriendFeed, a social networking service incubated out of Benchmark Capital, has raised a $5 million first round from the VC firm and its founders Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh. The company offers a service similar to Facebook’s news feed, allowing friends to monitor each other’s activity across an array of…