VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Just over a week after blocking Twitter, Turkey is now moving to shut down access to YouTube in a bid to stem off the source of corruption scandal and reputation-damaging leaks related to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

US-based shipping startup Shyp came out of private beta mode today to deliver hassle-free posting and packaging service to business offices and individual consumers in San Francisco.

San Francisco, California-based equity crowdfunding service CircleUp pocketed $14 million in its second funding round from Canaan Partners, Google Ventures, and other investors to bridge investors and companies.

Illinois, US-based cleantech firm LanzaTech landed $60 million in a Series D funding round led by Mitsui & Co LTD to convert toxic factory gases into renewable fuel.

Social media giant Facebook acquired California, US-based virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR in a deal valued at $2 billion to help the startup expand beyond non-gaming applications of its technology.

San Francisco, US-based virtual ad firm DemandBased raised $15 in a funding round led by Greenspring Associates to build the mobile ad capabilities of its B2B enterprise software platform.

In a bid to gain traction over its competitors, American software giant is rebranding its open cloud platform 'Windows Azure' to 'Microsoft Azure.' according to sources familiar with the matter cited by ZDNet.

Menlo Park, US-based venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners (LSVP) closed $950 million for its new investment fund that will back early-stage companies in the consumer and tech sectors.

US President Barack Obama is getting ready to propose a legislation that will halt the bulk phone data collection of the National Security Agency (NSA) and instead let the agency procure individual court authorizations for every phone number to be investigated.

Illinois, US-based software systems provider Wellspring Worldwide bagged $3.5 million in funding from undisclosed investors, according to a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher, and Tesla founder Elon Musk invested $40 million in the second funding round of secretive artificial intelligence (AI) startup Vicarious.

The US Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) awarded $17 million to clean energy businesses across 13 states to tackle the big problem of energy consumption.

Arusha, Tanzania-based solar energy provider Off Grip Electric scored $7 million in a funding round led by Vulcan Capital, SolarCity, and Omidyar Network to power homes with prepaid electricity.

Denver, US-based health tech firm Welltok Inc acquired Seattle-based health app developer Mindbloom for an undisclosed amount to establish itself in the mobile health space.

Developers have modified the open source Bitcoin software and released a new version to resolve the transaction flaws and to prevent a Mt Gox-like incident from happening again.