Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Benchmark Invests in Pageflakes: Ajax Desktop War Heats Up

German startup Pageflakes, an Ajax-rich personalized home page (an early profile is here) will announce a Series A round of financing led by Benchmark Capital on Wednesday. The size of the round will not be disclosed, which suggests it was on the low side.

In late March, Paris-based competitor Netvibes announced a $1 million seed round. Both Netvibes and Pageflakes compete with Microsoft’s Live.com and other personalized start pages. And while they have nowhere near the traffic of Live.com, users routinely comment that they like the speed of the Pageflakes and Netvibes sites in comparision.

Benchmark is actively investing in European headquartered or focused new consumer web startups. They recently led a $15 million round in Bebo, formerly headquartered in the UK (and now in San Francisco).

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