Thoof, the personalized news site founded by Revver founder Ian Clarke and backed by AV, and which we covered here in a Q&A Wednesday , is rumored to be for sale, according to Stacey Higginbotham over at GigaOm in a piece published on Thursday.   Stacey did some investigative reporting, and has found that Alan Ren, the company’s co-founder, is no longer with the company.   However, her piece indicates as of the date of her piece [...]

On Friday afternoon, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Financial released data showing that venture funding across the US was up, with 963 companies raising over $7 billion in the fourth quarter.  Most interestingly, out of the top 10 deals in 2007, only 3 were in California (local company Heliovolt raised either the 4th or 6th largest amount depending if you include its follow-on round). Austin also had a significant quarter, with 23 [...]