Google is partnering with U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation (USBCDC), a division of U.S. Bank; to create an $ 86 million Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) fund. According to a release issued today, the funding will be used towards the construction and operation of 480 affordable rental housing units for low income families and senior [...]

Google Ventures, the VC arm of the search giant, has made an investment in popular iPhone/iPad game developer ngmoco, say multiple sources. The company, which is already profitable, took the money as part of a new round of funding — probably in the $ 3-5 million range. ngmoco currently has some very popular games on [...]

When Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg took venture money from True Ventures in 2005 and others he was just 21 years old. Now the firm has invested in someone even younger – 19 year old Brian Wong. Wong founded Kiip.me (pronounced Wii-style as “keep”), a mobile advertising platform that is bridging the mobile and gaming worlds. [...]

The9, a Chinese online game developer, has made an undisclosed minority equity investment in Aurora Feint, the company behind OpenFeint, a social gaming network for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The news comes a couple of months after The9 announced that it had acquired a majority interest in US-based Red 5 Studios for a [...]

Elevation Partners has quietly amassed another huge chunk of Facebook shares on the secondary market, according to a recent letter to its limited partners. Elevation spent 0 million for five million more Facebook shares. This is on top of Elevation’s million, 2.5 million share purchase back in November. That November deal has already gone up [...]

Google Ventures has just invested an undisclosed amount in Recorded Future, a company that is working to accurately predict the future. As its name implies, the web application uses a wealth of quantifiable data from the past and present to forecast trends and predict outcomes. It likely has around the same level of accuracy, give [...]

Google has increased its commitment to clean and sustainable energy with a sizable investment in two wind farms. The company will put $38.3 million into two NextEra Energy Resources wind farms to speed the process of serving consumers with renewable energy. The wind farms currently generate 169.5 megawatts of power; that’s enough to power more [...]

Google is investing in mobile payments startup through Corduro through Google Ventures. It looks like its site has just gone up, and is still pretty much a placeholder with a lot of dummy text. But it appears that Corduro is a mobile payments platform for small businesses and organizations that want to accept credit card [...]

The investment arm of Intel, Intel Capital, has announced three U.S.-based investments totaling approximately $15 million today. The deals include eldercare website Caring.com, real estate investment ratings provider SmartZip Analytics and virtualization infrastructure services provider Virtustream. Intel did not reveal the breakdown of the $15 million between the three startups. Caring.com is an informational site [...]

Prosper.com, a popular peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S., has raised $14.7 million in Series D funding round from new investors TomorrowVentures and CompuCredit Holdings with existing investors Accel Partners; Benchmark Capital; DAG Ventures; Meritech Capital Partners; Omidyar Network; QED Investors; and Volition Capital participating in the round. This round of funding brings Prosper’s total [...]