San Jose-based Nanosolar, which is developing thin film, solar cell technology based on printing nanoparticle inks and CIGS solar circuits on panels, said last week that it has raised $20M in a funding round. The round came from current investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and OnPoint Technologies, along with new investor Aeris Capital. The firm said the funding will go towards continued expansion and new projects. Nanosolar is aiming at the utility-scale, solar power market.

San Francisco-based Sugar, Inc., the online publisher of women's websites and blogs which is backed by Sequoia Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, said Tuesday that it has acquired fellow San Francisco firm Circle Of Moms. Circle of Moms operates an online social network for mothers and prospective mothers-to-be. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Sugar said that Circle of Moms will continue to operate independently as a subsidiary of the firm after the acquisition.

San Francisco-based Stitch Labs, a developer of cloud-based, small business inventory management software, said today that it has raised $1M in a seed funding round. The round was led by True Ventures. Stitch Labs offers an online inventory management, customer-relationship management, reporting, order fulfillment, and analytics product. The firm was founded by Brandon Levey.

Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of semiconductor giant Intel, said last week that it has invested in two, Brazilian companies, Fashion.me and Coquelux. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. Fashion.me is a provider of a social, e-commerce platform focused on fashion on the Internet. Coquelux is an online shopping club focused on premium and luxury flash sales. intel said it has now invested over $75M in 25 Brazilian companies since 1999.

San Francisco-based Fluid, a developer of design and consulting services for for such brands as The North Face, Quidsi (Diapers.com, Wag.com), Sears, and others, said today that it has raised $24M in a growth equity funding. The funding came from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Fluid said the investment will power expansion of its solutions and agency services. Fluid said the move will help drive the hiring of over 200 new employees in the next two years at the company. Fluid helps retailers with consulting, design and development, as well as associated products. The company said it was advised by ThinkEquity LLC in the transaction.

San Jose-based Compass Labs, a developer of software for managing social media advertising, said this week that it has raised $6M in a funding round. The round came from New Enterprise Associate sand Presidio Ventures. Compass Labs is led by Dilip Venkatachari. Compass Labs' software helps brands better target and understand their customers on social networks, via ad campaign management tools and analytics.

Pinwheel, a new startup headed by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, has launched into private beta, saying that it is looking to let users leave notes and photos to other people around the world. The startup--which is backed by Redpoint, True, Betaworks, Founder Collective, SV Angel, Obvious Corp, along with angels--said it is available for private beta on the web, with an iOS version coming soon. Pinwheel lets users tag specific locations with notes and photos, which other users can interact with. Details of the funding were not announced.

Santa Clara-based NetLogic Microsystems is now officially part of Broadcom, the two said this morning, after the acquisition of NetLogic by Broadcom completed. The deal was worth $3.7 billion, and had originally been announced in September. NetLogic makes multi-core processors, content processors, and other network processing chips.

Foster City-based E2Open, which operates a cloud-based business trading network, has filed for an IPO. The firm said it is looking to raise up to $86.25M in its IPO. The company has not set an exchange. The IPO is being underwritten by BofA Merrill Lynch, William Blair & Company, Pacific Crest Securities, Canaccord Genuity, and Needham & Company. E2Open is venture backed by Crosspoint Venture Partners, Seagate Technology, JK&B Capital, Invesco, B&M Ventures, along with others. E2Open's systems are used to smooth out trading and purchasing activities between companies.

San Francisco-based Loyalize, a developer of technology which allows audiences to interact with a show or brand during live TV shows, has been acquired. According to loyalty program operator Viggle, which is ownd by Function(x) Inc., it has acquired Loyalize, to enhance its experience. FInancial terms of the buy were not disclose. Loyalize allowed users to check in, answer questions, vote and express their opinions, and more in response to live TV events.

San Francisco-based restaurant reviews site Yelp has set its IPO pricing range, saying that it expects to offer up 7,150,000 shares of its common stock at between $12.00 and $14.00 per share. Yelp is looking to trade on the New York Stock Exchange as YELP. Yelp had filed for an IPO in November. Yelp is backed by Bessemer Venture Capital, Elevation Partners , Benchmark Capital, and Max Levchin.

San Francisco-based QuickPay Corp., a developer of mobile apps used to pay for parking spaces, has scored an investment from the investment firm of William Clay Ford, Jr. Investment firm Fontinalis Partners, which is headed by Ford, announced the deal Thursday morning. Financial details of the investment were not disclosed. QuickPay's apps allow users to pay for parking using their mobile phone, offering up both iPhone and Android versions of its software. QuickPay is headed by Carl Muirbrok.

Palo Alto-based Backplane, a developer of online community software which powers Lady Gaga's #Little Monsters web site, said today that it has raised a Series A round of funding. The round was worth $4.5M. The round included Sequoia Capital, Greylock Discovery Fund, Battery Ventures, Formation 8, Advance/Newhouse Investment Partnership an affiliate of Conde Nast, along with Google Ventures, Founders Fund Angel, Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, i/o Ventures and other angels. According to the firm, it will use the funding to scale out its technical talent and develop other communities. Backplane was founded by Matt Michelsen, Troy Carter, Alex Moore and Joey Primiani.

Hayward-based C3Nano, which is developing transparent electrode materials aimed at use in flexible displays, touch screens, solar cells, and other applications, said today that it has raised $6.7M in a funding round. The Series B funding was led by Phoenix Venture Partners, and also included GSR Ventures, an existing investors. C3Nano is developing carbon hybrid-based ink and film, which can be used as a transparent conductor.

Sunnyvale-based BlueCoat Systems, the developer of web security and WAN optimization hardware, is now officially owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. According to Thoma Bravo, it paid approximately $1.3 billion for Blue Coat. Blue Coat's CEO, Gregory S. Clark, continues to lead the company. Blue Coat announced the deal in December.

Milpitas-based SanDisk, the maker of flash memory, said this morning that it has acquired FlashSoft, a provider of caching software for the solid state disk drive (SSD) market. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. SanDisk said it will sell FlashSoft's products standlone, as well as part of its products. FlashSoft was venture backed by Thomvest International, and had raised only $3M in funding back in June of last year.

San Francisco-based Scripted.com, the online marketplace for freelance writers, said today that it has raised $150,000 more in seed funding. The funding was led by former Redpoint Ventures EIR David Wu, and also included Crosslink Capital, Shopzilla CIO Jody Mulkey and Liveops Founder Douglas Feirstein. Scripted.com is led by Sunil Rajaraman. As part of the funding, the firm said it has added DJ Patil, the former Chief Scientist of LinkedIn, and 99designs Co-founder Matt Mickiewicz to its advisory board. Scripted.com connects freelance writers with small businesses, who need blog posts and social media posts written for them.

Satellite navigation provider Garmin said this morning that it has agreed to acquire Soquel, California-based Interphase Technologies, a developer of phased array scanning sonar technology. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Garmin said the buy will allow it to expand its marine product portfolio, particularly in the area of sonar technology. Interphase was founded in 1986. Garmin said it will continue to operate Interphase as Garmin Santa Cruz, with research and development continuing in Soquel.

Newark, California-based LUMEnergi, the venture-backed provider of network-controlled, lighting control products, said today that it has named Barry Weinbaum as its President and CEO. Weinbaum was most recently at Acuity Brands, and also served as CEO of Renaissance Lighting and NanoOpto, in addition to holding positions at Lucent Technologies and AT&T. LUMEnergy is venture backed by Braemar Energy Ventures, Low Carbon Accelerator, Noventi, Townsend VC, along with others.

Mountain View-based Google reported today that it is now seeing more than 70 billion request a day to its public, domain name system (DNS) servers, which it says makes it the largest public DNS service in the world. DNS is the system which is used by computers to translate web domain names into IP addresses, a critical piece of enabling the transfer of web and other data across the world. According to Google, it now provides its DNS service to "tens of millions" of people, with about 70 percent of its traffic coming from outside the U.S.

Livermore-based Bridgelkux, the developer of LED lighting technology headed by Bill Watkins, said today that it has scored $25M more in funding, via Chinese lighting firm Kaistar Lighting. Bridgelux said the funding will go towards research, development, and production of its LED chips and packaging technology. The new funding comes less than six months after a $15M round from its venture backers, which include VantagePoint Capital Partners, DCM, El Dorado Ventures, Novus Energy Partners, IFA, Chrysalix, Harris & Harris Group, Craton Equity Partners, Jebsen Asset Management, and Passport Capital.

Menlo Park-based Health Fidelity said last week that it has raised a Series A funding round, to apply to its efforts to use natural language processing to mine for clinical healthcare data. The firm did not disclose the size of the funding. The round came from Charter Life Sciences, via Managing Partner Fred Schwarzer. Health Fidelity's software looks to extract medical information from unstructured, clinical healthcare data. The firm's technology is based on research from Columbia University.

San Francisco-based Marin Software, which develops online advertising management software, said today that it has raised $30M in a funding round. The round was led by Temasek, and also included SAP Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Crosslink Capital, DAG Ventures, and Triangle Peak Partners. Marin Software said that Frank van Veenendaal, President of Worldwide Sales and Services at salesforce.com, joins the company's board along with the funding. Marin is led by Chris Lien.

Livermore-based HALT Medical, a developer of medical devices for treating uterine fibroids, announced today that it has raised $20M in the first part of an ongoing, $50M funding round.The firm said the debt and equity funding came from American Capital Strategies. The firm said the funding will go to launch its system into markets worldwide.

Folsom-based Global Digital Solutions, a provider of telecom engineering and consulting services, said today that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Sacramento-based KRS Construction, provider of underground construction services for telecom carriers. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Both serve the telecom market with their services.

San Jose-based Solar Junction, which is developing high-efficiency, multi-junction cells for the concentrated photovoltaic panel market, said this morning that it has raised $19.2M in a Series D funding round. The round came from strategic investor IQE, along with its existing investors New Enterprise Associates, Advanced Technology Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Solar Junction, which is headed by Jim Weldon, develops CPV cells which it says have a production efficiency advantage over current market leaders. IQE is a provider of semiconductor wafers.

Swiss virtual desktop services firm Nivio said today that it has raised $21M in funding, to expand its engineering efforts in Palo Alto and launch in the U.S. The funding came from Videocon, a conglomerate based in India, along with AEC Partners. Nivio operates a subscription, virtual desktop service which allows users to run virtual copies of Windows anywhere from their PC, tablet, or laptop.

Netvibes, the developer of business dashboards software which is based in Europe, but has offices in San Francisco, has been acquired by Dassault Systemes. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Netvibes was backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures. Netvibes developed a business dashboard product which made it easy for users to track real time information about their businesses.

San Francisco-based private equity firm Francisco Partners said today that it has acquired Concerro, a provider of healthcare staffing and scheduling software. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Francisco said the buy came through its existing portfolio company, API Healthcare. API Healthcare was advised by Wells Fargo Securities in the deal.