Seattle-based Cozi, the developer of a family calendaring service headed by Robbie Cape, has raised $3.0M, part of an ongoing $4.3M fundraising effort by the company, according to a regulatory filing by the firm yesterday. Source of the funding was not disclosed. Cozi operates a service which helps families coordinate their schedules, which runs on Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry phones.Continue →

Biofuels firm ZeaChem, which is developing biorefineries which turn woody biomass and agricultural residues to create bioefuels, said Thursday that it has received a $232.5M loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to build a commercial facility in Boardman, Oregon. ZeaChem said the loan, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program, will go towards building its first, commercial-scale cellulosic biorefinery in the location....Continue →

Seattle-based Apptio, a provider of tools used to manage information technology services, planning, budgeting, and other processes, said today that it has named Dione Hedgpeth as its Vice President of Customer Success. Hedgpeth was previously at Precise Software Solutions, serving as Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services. Hedgpeth also has served at Pano Logic and Mercury Interactive.

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Seattle-based Tideworks, a developer software used for managing shipping terminals and shipping lines, reported today that it has scored a win in Mexico. The firm said that it is providing SSA Mexico (SSAM), the largest container terminal in Mexico, with a customer web portal. Financial terms of the win were not announced. Tideworks said that the website provides terminal customers with one-stop access to vital terminal and cargo information.
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Seattle-based Rhapsody said this morning that it has acquired Napster International, the international operations of music streaming service Napster. According to Rhapsody, it will own and operate the Napster service in Germany and the United Kingdom. Financial details of the buy were not disclosed. Rhapsody said it will retain all of Napster International employees, and continue to run the brand under the Napster name.

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Seattle-based RealNetworks is selling off a bundle of patents, as well as video codec software, to Intel, in a deal worth $120M, the company said this morning. RealNetworks said it had sold a "significant number" of patents to Intel as part of the deal, looking to "unlock" the value of the company's assets. RealNetworks will continue to have certain rights to use the patents in its own products....Continue →

Seattle-based Big Fish Games, the developer of casual games headed by Jeremy Lewis, made a high visibility hire Wednesday, hiring away former Rovio VP Wibe Wagemans as Vice President, General Manager, Mobile. Wagemans was most recently SVP of Global Brand Advertising for Rovio, the maker of the popular Angry Birds franchise. Wagemans also headed up market for Bing for mobile.
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Seattle-based Zumobi, which develops mobile applications for media properties, said today that it has named Marla Schimke as its Vice President of Marketing. Schimke was previously at AudienceScience, and also has served at Microsoft and Ernst & Young. The company said that Schimke will lead the firm's marketing strategy. Zumobi's has developed apps for MSNBC, Today Show, Sporting News Pro Football, PopSci.com, and MOTOR TREND News.
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Seattle-based Amazon.com is reportedly promising to bring between 2,500 and 3,000 jobs to the state of Florida, if lawmakers there agree to exempt the retailer from sales taxes for the next two years. The Associated Press reports that the offer comes after the state's legislature began pushing a bill to force online retailers to collect tax for the state....Continue →

Seattle-based Mozy, the online backup service run by EMC, said today that it has launched a public beta of a new file synchronization service, Mozy Stash. Mozy said the new feature allows uers to keep files up to date across multiple computers, smartphones, and tablets. Mozy said the feature will synchronizes files across those multiple devices in a single folder, making that data available anywhere a user needs it. Continue →

Seattle-based Amazon Web Services, the web services arm of Amazon, is taking on the enterprise market this morning with a new product aimed at enterprise backup. Amazon said its new AWS Storage Gateway will allow enterprises to securely upload data to the AWS cloud, asynchronously moving data to Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3). The new device uses an iSCSI interface to transfer and encrypt data into the S3 service....Continue →