Palo Alto-based Disconnect announced this morning that it has raised $3.5M for its online privacy software. The firm said the Series A round came from FirstMark Capital. Disconnect was founded by Brian Kennish and Casey Oppenheim, and develops software which blocks the loading of tracking software. The firm's software is a browser extension. The company said the fund will go to extend its software to new platforms. Disconnect has raised $4.1M in funding.

Palo Alto-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a developer of small-molecule therapeutics derived from a boron chemistry platform, has entered into a new, $45.0M loan agreement, the company said this week. The company said the loan comes from Hercules Technology Growth Capital, and will be distributed in three tranches. The firm said $22.6M of the first $30M tranche will go towards paying off a remaining loan agreement, with the remainder going to New Drug Application (NDA) activity. Anacor is publicly traded on the NASDAQ as ANAC.

San Francisco-based Thumbtack, which helps people get custom quotes for local services, has raised $12.5M in a funding, the firm said this morning. The funding came from Sequoia Capital, along with Javelin Venture Partners and MHS Capital. Byron Schreier from Sequoia joins the company's board with the funding. Thumbtack is looking to make it easier for people to find local services, such as a plumber, via the Internet.

San Francisco-based big data software developer GoodData has raised $22M in a funding round, led by TOTVS Ventures. TOTVS Ventures said it led the Series D funding in GoodData, which is also backed by Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners, Next World Capital and Tenaya Capital. TOTVS Ventures is an enterprise software company based in Brazil. GoodData has now raised $75.5M in funding.

Yahoo announced Wednesday afternoon that it has acquired GhostBird Software, a developer of mobile photo editing apps. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. According to Yahoo, it will use the buy to enhance Flickr's mobile photos. GhostBird Software develops KitCam and PhotoForge2, which the company says it has removed from the App Store.

Mountain View-based Fox Technologies (FoxT), a developer of access management and governance software, has been acquired by Parallax Capital Fund, a private equity firm. Financial terms of the buy wer enot disclosed. FoxT develops access management and governance software for companies, managing access to servers, desktops, databases, and applications. Parallax Capital said that FoxT's management team will remain in place.

San Francisco-based advertising retargeting firm AdRoll said today that it has acquired Bitdeli, a fellow San Francisco startup. Bitdeli develops a "big data" analytics software platform for business dahsboards. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Bitdeli was founded by brothers Ville and Jyri Tuulos. AdRoll is venture backed by Foundation Capital, Accel Partners, Merus Capital, and Peter Thiel.

San Mateo-based BrightEdge said todsay that it has raised $42.8M in a Series D funding. The funding was led by Insight Venture Partners, and also included Intel Capital, Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures. BrightEdge provides an online content marketing and search engine optimization platform. The firm is led by Jim Yu, and says its customers include SuccessFactors, SurveyMonkey, Nike, Microsoft, 3M, Nike, Marriott, and Choice Hotels International.

Santa Clara-based Mercatus has raised $2M in a Series A funding round, for the firm's efforts to rate and syndicate funding for energy projects. The firm, formerly known as SCS Renewables, said the Series A came from Vision Ridge Partners, as well as Augment Ventures and Shah Capital. Mercatus provides origination and syndication management for energy investments. The firm says it has helped assess over 3.2 GW of solar projects since 2009.

San Francisco-based InternMatch said today that it has raised $4M in a Series A funding. The round came from ARTIS Ventures, Subtraction Capital, Kapor Capital, and 500 Startups. InternMatch operates an online website which helps match students with employer internships. The firm has previously raised seed funding from Dave McClure, Mitch Kapor, Vishal Makhijani, Matt Ocko, and Rudy Gadre.

Mountain View-based Google announced this morning that it has acquired Waze, the Israeli startup developing navigation software. The deal is reportedly worth $1.1 billion. According to Google, the Waze product team will remain in Israel, and will continue to operate separately for now, but will eventually work on enhancing Google Maps.

Palo Alto-based Inkiru, a company developing predictive analytics software, has been acquired by @WalmartLabs, the companies announced today. Financial details of the buy were not disclosed. nkiru said its team will join @WalmartLabs in a variety of roles. @WalmartLabs said that Inkiru's software combines real-time predictive intelligence, big data analytics and a customizable decision engine to inform and streamline business decisions.

Venture backed pharmaceuticals firm Pearl Therapeutics has been acquired by AstraZeneca in a deal worth up to $1.15 billion, the firms said today. Pearl Therappeutics is a developer of inhaled bronchodilator products for the treatment of patients with COPD. Pearl Therapeutics was venture backed by 5AM Ventures, Clarus Ventures, Nektar Therapeutics, New Leaf Venture Partners, and Vatera Holdings. AstraZenea said it will pay $560M for Pearl with up to $450M in earnout.

Redwood City-based Kenandy disclosed this morning that it has raised $33M in funding. The funding was led by Lightspeed Ventuer Partners, and also included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Wilson Sonsini. Kenandy develops cloud-based manufacturing, inventory, and supply chain software.

San Francisco-based Twilio said Friday that it has raised $70M, in a Series D funding round for the company. The funding was led by Redpoint Ventures, and also included Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bessemer Venture Partners. Twilio develops a set of cloud-based APIs which allow developers to create their own voice, SMS, and other telephony applications. Twilio has now raised around $102.67M in funding.

N3twork, a stealth mode developer of mobile software, revealed this week that it has raised $12M in a funding round. The funding came from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Floodgate, and Google Ventures. The firm is headed by Neil Young, formerly of San Francisco's Ngmoco. N3twork has yet to announce details on its product.

Mountain View-based Mirantis, a developer of OpenStack systems integration, said this week that it has raised $10M in a second round of its Series A funding. The funding came from Ericsson, Red Hat, SAP Ventures, and WestSummit Capital. The firm has now raised $20M for its services helping customer deploy OpenStack clouds. The firm is also backed by
Dell Ventures and Intel Capital.

San Jose-based Panzura said Thursday that it has raised $25M in a Series D funding round. The round was led by Meritech Capital Partners, and also include Matrix Partners, Khosla Ventures, Opus Capital and Chevron Technology Ventures. Paul Madera of Meritech Capital Partners joins the company's board. Panzura develops a cloud-based, storage sytsem which includes distributed file system and network attached storage support.

El Cerrito-based Vigilent, which develops building energy management systems, said Tuesday that it has raised a new round of funding. Size of the round was not disclosed. The firm said the funding came from TELUS Ventures. The firm's energy management sytsem use wireless sensors, data center analysis, and more to optimize air cooling in those data centers.

Sunnyvale-based Ayla Networks announced this morning that it has raised $5.4M in funding, for creating a cloud-based service for the "Internet of Things". The funding came from Voyager Capital and Crosslink Capital. Ayla is led by David Friedman. The company's cloud-based service lets manufacturers Internet-enable their household products, like appliances and thermostats, and make them into connected devices.

San Francisco-based Whistle, which develops an connected device for dogs which monitors the health of dogs, and makes that data available to owners on their smartphones and the Internet, has raised $6M in a funding and launched its product. The firm's Series A included DCM Ventures and others. Jason Krikorian (DCM, formerly of Sling) joins the company's board with the funding. Whistle's device costs $99.95 and tracks how often dogs are walking, playing, resting, and other activity to help owners measure their dog's health.

Financial news and data provider Bloomberg said today that it has launched a brand new, $75M venture capital fund called Bloomberg Beta. The fund, which is based in San Francisco, said it will invest in and create new, early-stage technology companies. The fund's sole LP is Bloomberg L.P. According to Bloomberg, the new fund will invest solely for financial reasons, and not for business relationships with the firm. Bloomberg Data said it will initially focus on areas around data (data, technology platforms, content discovery, media distribution), and making work better ((networks and communities, human-computer interaction, and radically new organizational models). The new fund will be led by Roy Bahat.

Redwood City-based Personal Capital, which combines software tools and mobile apps with professional, financial advisors, has scored $25M more in funding for its services today. The company said the new, Series C funding round will go to "supercharge" its growth. The new funding came from Crosslink Capital, BlackRock, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Venrock. Jim Feuille of Crosslink joins the company's board as part of the funding.

San Francisco-based Scripted, which operates an online marketplace for businesses to find freelance writers, has raised $4.5M in a Series A funding, the firm said today. The funding was led by Crosslink Capital and Redpoint Ventures. According to the firm, Chris Moore from Redpoint and Eric Chin from Crosslink Capital join the company's board with the funding. Scripted is led by Sunil Rajaraman.

Daqri, which develops augmented reality technology, said this morning that it has raised $15M in a private equity funding. The firm, which has its R&D location in Sunnyvale, said that the funding came from Tarsadia Investments. Daqri's technology is used to provide interactivity to physical objects, allowing users to interact with the real world through a tablet or mobile phone. Troy Carter of Atom Factory joins the company's board with the funding. Daqri's headquarters are in Los Angeles.

San Francisco-based Salesforce.com said today that it has acquired ExactTarget, in a deal worth $2.5 billion in cash. According to Salesforce.com, it will pay $33.75 per share in cash for ExactTarget, which is a developer of cloud-based email and online marketing tools. Salesforce.com said the buy would acceleratethe growth and leadership of the company in the cloud marketing market. Salesforce.com is being advised by BofA Merrill Lynch; ExactTarget is being advised by JP Morgan in the deal.

San Francisco-based Zynga is in a major layoff today, according to the company, and is cutting 18 percent of its staff. Zynga, which had around 2900 workers before the cut, will also shutter its New York, Los Angeles and Dallas locations.

Menlo Park-based venture investor U.S. Venture Partners announced an expansion of its team Thursday, saying that it has promoted Dr. Jacques Benkoski to Partner, and added two, entrepreneurs-in-residence to its team. The firm said that it has added Mike Maciag and Craig Parker as EIRs. Maciag was the founder of MS2 (acquired by Agile Software), and also led Electronics for Imaging and NetFrame Systems. Parker was VP of Corporate Development and Strategy for Human Genome Sciences (acquired by Glaxo Smithkline), and also has served at Lehman Brothers and Immunex (acquired by Amgen).

Mountain View-based BloomReach, which develops big data marketing software, said Thursday that it has acqui-hired the co-founder of ShopLogic, a developer of a promotions management platform. BloomReach said it hired CEO Kevin Chan and CTO Dennis Maskevich to bolster its big data marketing apps. Financial details of the buy were not disclosed. BloomReach is venture backed by Bain Capital Ventures, NEA, and Lightspeed Ventures.

Los Gatos-based Weotta, a developer of mobile event and local activity discovery apps, has raised a round of funding from Google Ventures, David Morin, and TenOneTen Ventures. The firm, which was seeded by Data Collective, Crosslink Capital, and Eric Blachford, said Thursday that it has launched a "take-me-out" app to help users "discover and share the world around you and live life in the moment."

San Francisco-based mobile app developer Mr. Number, which develops a popular Android call blocking applications, has been acquired by Seattle-based WhitePages, WhitePages announced this morning. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. WhitePages said it would use the acquisition to further expand its mobile offerings.

San Leandro-based Mercator MedSystems has raised $6.5M in a Series B financing, the company announced this morning. Mercator MedSystems said the funding came from Volcano Capital, Crocker Capital, and Aphelion Capital, and also included Windy City Inc. and SET Technology GmbH. The firm has now raised $18.5M in equity funding. Mercator MedSystems is developing medical devices used for treating peripheral artery disease (PAD).

Saratoga-based Roku, the provider of online television streaming hardware, has raised another big round of funding, the firm said yesterday. Roku said it raised $60M in a strategic investment round, from Hearst Corporation, BSkyB, and News Corporation. Roku said the Series F round will help it ready the company for growth. Roku is known for its streaming media players, which allow consumers to watch streaming video from Netflix and others on their television.

Emeryville-based TubeMogul has completed a second tranche of its Series C funding, the firm said Wednesday. According to TubeMogul, the new, $10M funding was led by SingTel Innov8, and also included Cross Creek Capital and existing investors Digital Advertising Consortium, Foundation Capital and Trinity Ventures. The funding brings its Series C to $30M. TubeMogul operates a video advertising platform used for running digital video advertising campaigns for brand marketers.