As a sort of user-generated news site, Associated Content’s description of itself as “The People’s Media Company” seems reasonable.  alarm:clock even reports, “Associated Content provides cash bonuses to its best contributors,” which sounds quite nice.  Yet despite these cheery aspects, the company is a bit controversial.

Not too long ago, people started asking questions about its intent – was Associated Content out to game Google?  No solid conclusions were ever reached, but the story was covered everywhere from WebProNews to USA Today.

In any case, it seems that Canaan Partners doesn’t have a problem with the way Associated Content is run; that firm led the funding round.  “We are very enthusiastic about the large market opportunity, the business momentum, and the great team they have assembled,” stated Warren Lee of Canaan Partners.  “We are excited about helping the Associated Content team continue to refine its offerings and extend its reach.”

And as alarm:clock pointed out, this may start a trend that would be beneficial to an entire business model – earlier this week, NowPublic, a “participatory news network,” also received funding.

First: Canaan did indeed lead an investment in techTribe, “India’s career network.”  As for any dollar amounts, “VC Circle learns the funding could be a little under $10 million, although this could not be confirmed.  When contacted, Rohit Agarwal, the founder of TechTribe, confirmed the investment, but refused to divulge the figures.”

Hmph.  Well, Alok Mittal, Managing Director of Canaan Partners in India, was a bit more talkative (on general matters) in a press release.  “techTribe has established a strong following for its career networking site,” he said, “and we believe the company is poised for explosive growth as they change the nature of the recruiting market through new social networking and referral models.”

It’s not hard to believe that PR-oriented corporate-speak – looking at the site, it’s clean, professional, and – though I’m not sure how its Indian audience will react to this – techTribe is all in English.  (A clue as to why: techTribe is based out of both San Francisco and New Delhi, and many Indians are fluent in both English and Hindi.)

There’s also a lot of information on techTribe’s front page.  Maybe, in time, that will include how much money it received from Canaan Partners.