CEO Dennis Crowley announced the funding Thursday morning.

“The stuff we’re building takes a lot of work. Look at yesterday’s big update, for example. The most amazing thing about it is that it tells you interesting things around you, anywhere in the world, the second you open the app. That’s not easy. We have to crunch your 3,500,000,000 check-ins, layer your social data over it, semantically analyze our tens of millions of tips, and take a look at real-time activity around you. We do all that in under a second, all to recommend two or three places that are perfect for you,” says Crowley.

“We’ve got a ton left to do. We’re building tools for local businesses to connect with their customers. We’re making search better, every single day. We’re building that location layer for the internet – the platform that all other companies use to power location in their apps. This takes time and a lot of work, and great investors.”

On Wednesday, Foursquare launched version 6.0, a significant update to both their iOS and Android platforms that puts local search and recommendations front and center. This update is more in line with the vision that Crowley has for the service – to move well beyond the check-in.

And along with the stated goals of expanding the service and building better tools, you know that Foursquare has to now focus more on monetization.

According to Bloomberg, Foursquare is planning on a whole new slew of ad partnerships, letting every merchant it works with buy ads. They’ll also be expanding their sales team to around 40 people. Foursquare has had ads for a while in the form of sponsored location posts inside the feed and in search results in the app. But they haven’t really taken off, with reports alleging Foursquare only generated about $2 million in revenue last year.

The majority of this $41 million comes in the form of a multiyear loan from Silver Lake, and everything else is convertible debt which can be exchanged for shares later. Taking on this debt allows Foursquare to buy itself some time to figure out how to monetize.

According to Crowley, 1.3 million businesses and 33 million users have “given a try” to Foursquare.

Now, the Winklevii have made their second major investment.

This time, the twins have invested $750,000 in Hukkster, an online shopping helper that lets you save your desired items and then notifies you when the price drops.

“Hukkster is simply a button that lives in your browser. So it’s always there when you shop online,” says the company.

The startup allows users to “Hukk” products as they find them through everyday browsing. If you see and item you like, a home accessory, pair of paints, cool new electronic device – Hukk it and you’ll receive a notification (via email) when the product goes on sale. Hukkster is still in its invite-only phase as of right now, but it can already boast 10,000 users.

According to the New York Times, Hukkster was founded by two former retail consultants, Katie Finnegan and Erica Bell. Apparently, the startup has already had success with some big retail chains including J. Crew and Bloomingdale’s.

Follow @tylerwinklevoss

Tyler Winklevoss
@tylerwinklevoss

don’t get Hukked, Hukk! http://t.co/T7nRYt3d

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“We started digging in and using the site,” Cameron Winkelvoss told the NYT. “We then had dinner with Katie and Erica and within a couple of weeks we had a deal confirmed.

“It’s the pull rather than the push – that’s the key. You’re only getting a notification if you’ve asked for it.”

That’s how Hukkster wants to separate itself from other services that email users will daily deals. Users only get an email notification when the price drops on a product they’ve already “Hukked.” It’s not a daily deal and it’s not a coupon, just a notification that it may be a good time to buy that product you already want.

With this investment, the Winklevoss Twins take another step away from the long, bitter litigation that kept them in the news for a couple of years.

Follow @SumZero

SumZero
@SumZero

Welcome to the family @Hukkster! — Winkleii Lead Investment in Shopping Site Hukkster http://t.co/J9TYyJki@dealbook@nytimesbusiness

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Katie
@katiefinnegan

@SumZero@Hukkster@dealbook@nytimesbusiness thanks guys!! excited to join you.

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2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

For more on the various adventures of the Winklevii, check here.

SumZero bills itself as “the world’s largest community of hedge fund, mutual fund, and private equity professionals.” It’s a social network for investors, where they can share trading ideas and research. One of its big selling points is its exclusivity. According to the Wall Street Journal, the site currently boasts only 7,500 members.

According to the site’s cofounder, Divya Narendra, the application process is so selective that about 75% of them are ultimately rejected. And according to him, it’s still a personal thing. Apparently, Narendra reviews each application personally.

If the name Divya Narendra rings a bell, that’s because this isn’t the first time he’s been associated with the Winklevii. Narendra was part of the lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, where the Winklevii claimed that the Facebook founder stole the idea for the site from them.

After years of appeals, the Winklevoss twins finally settled for $65 million ($20 million in cash, $45 million in stock).

The $1 million that the Winklevii are injecting into SumZero comes out of Winklevoss Capital, their personal venture capital firm that the two recently started.

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Winklevoss Capital
@winklevosscap

Excited 2 have closed series A in @sumzero and working w/ their team 2 build an amazing company http://t.co/IB5ovVGc

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Last month, we told you that the WInklevii had just purchased an $18 million, 8,000 sq ft mansion in Los Angeles. Apparently, that purchase signified an expansion of Winklevoss Capital to the west coast. As a result of this round of investment, SumZero will also move into the Winklevoss’ office space in NYC.

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Cameron Winklevoss
@winklevoss

“My favorite toy as a kid was Legos. I loved building things, and that’s what we’re doing with @SumZero” #itstruehttp://t.co/6dZq464M

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The Asia Pacific Gateway project, which was finalized in December fo 2011, is working to build a massive underwater cable network stretching from Malaysia to South Korea and Japan. Along the way, the network will also flow to other “landing stations” in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore.

“The APG cable system is designed with the latest 40 Gbps wavelength technology and is designed to accommodate 100 Gbps wavelength technology for increasing efficiency and high-capacity. The total design capacity is up to 54.8Tbps,” according to a release from the APG Cable Consortium.

According to the BBC, Facebook won’t say exactly how much money they’re pumping into the initiative, but we do know that all of the investments from multiple sources total around $450 million.

“Our investment in this cable will help support our growth in South Asia, making it possible for us to provide a better user experience for a greater number of Facebook users in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore,” said a Facebook spokesman.

The project, which was initiated back in 2009, took a couple of years to get off the ground. When it was finally signed and begun in 2011, 14 total members had given the backing.

The project is supposedly set to complete by summer, 2014.

What’s Facebook’s interest here? Well, apart from spreading internet across the region for the good of mankind, Facebook is most likely looking to penetrate the Asian market much more successfully in the upcoming years. After engagement notoriously lagged in regions like Japan for years, recent data has suggested that Facebook could be taking off (albeit slowly) in the region.

The general estimation for Facebook revenue comes in at around $1.16 billion and $0.12 per share. Morgan Stanley is saying it will be more like $1.11 billion with $0.10 per share. Goldman Sachs says $1.125 billion and $0.11 per share.

Also noteworthy, half of Facebook’s underwriters initiated coverage with a hold rating, while Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs have it at a Buy recommendation.

Currently, Facebook shares are trading around $32.67 which is pretty good considering their price fell as low as $25 just a few weeks ago. It’s unlikely that shares will return to their $38 per share target price they were selling for on the first day of the IPO, but things are looking somewhat promising.

Scott Devitt of Morgan Stanley starts coverage as Overweight with a target price of $38, but sees it falling as low as $22 or rising as high as $52. Heather Bellini of Goldman Sachs is giving Facebook a Buy rating at a $42 target price.

On the flip-side, Justin Post of Merrill Lynch gives Facebook a Neutral rating with a $38 target price. Spencer Wang of Credit Suisse also gave them a Neutral rating, but put the target price at $34.

Obviously, we will just have to wait and see what happens. Overall Facebook is doing a lot better than some could have predicted. Of course, they are left with a lot of lawsuits and investigations to contend with as a result of their totally dysfunctional IPO launch, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to perform over the longterm. We’ll keep you posted.

According to LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaugnessy, you can add LivingSocial to that list. Despite recent losses for the company, they are aren’t hurting for the capital an IPO would bring in.

LivingSocial was recently able to raise $600 million in venture capital with Amazon controlling nearly 30% of the company.

While LivingSocial isn’t as popular as their closest competitor, Groupon, they aren’t looking to be acquired either. In fact, they invested heavily last year in ways to diversify and grow their business. Currently, Groupon is holding about 60% share of the daily deals market, and LivingSocial is holding 26%. There’s definitely room for growth.

The Washington, D.C.-based company is expanding regardless of not finding the diversity it needs to grow in the market. The D.C. City Council, and local business professionals are working on a tax abatement for LivingSocial in order to help them expand their operation within the city and attract more top-level talent to the tech laden area.

So while it looks like LivingSocial is joining the long list of tech companies totally off-put by the idea of going public, they have no desire to be acquired and continue to advance efforts to grow their business, and diversify their daily deal offerings.

Facebook aside, LivingSocial need only look at Groupon, their closest competitor, to see going public isn’t necessarily a fast-track to success.

The good news for the company’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, they maintain their majority 56 percent voting power at Google.

The issue of undermining their authority arose as the company continued to issue more shares to finance future acquisitions and compensate new employees.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt presided over the meeting explaining to shareholders that CEO Larry Page had, lost his voice, and would be unable to attend the meeting or speak at next week’s annual developers conference for Android mobile software.

While there has been no further information or reports on Page’s health, it doesn’t seem to be a condition which keeps him from performing his duties as CEO.

As far as the stock split goes, no exact dates have been given for the event, but it’s is believed no action can be taken until a lawsuit challenging the split is resolved. Due to be in court sometime in October, the complaint was filed by a Delaware shareholder who says the split violates fiduciary duty by assenting to the co-founders (Page and Brin).

By cutting the current class A stocks in half, each shareholder would then hold two shares, each worth half the original. The new class of stock issued, class C stock, would be non-voting shares. In other words, the holders of class C stock have no clout as far as the direction of the company goes.

As it stands right now, Page, Brin, and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt control about two-thirds of the voting power at Google. And it doesn’t appear this is likely to change anytime soon.

We’ll keep you updated on the shareholder lawsuit, the stock split, and any further news with CEO Page’s health condition. Check back for updates.

He has decided to sell off his huge collection of Facebook shares and is now saying it just isn’t a good investment. Ouch! That has to hurt Facebook in the eyes of investors.

Just this morning I wrote an article where Cuban offered his insight on how Facebook has what it takes to overcome the challenges ahead to become a valuable investment. Now he’s saying it’s best to get out when the gettin’ is good.

Essentially, Cuban says Facebook just issued too many shares of stock and in the process made themselves a lot less valuable. If they would have spread themselves thin, the market for Facebook shares would look a lot different today.

Financial guru Mark Cuban comments on his decision to sell off his shares of Facebook:

“I already sold it, I took my hit, my thesis was wrong. I thought we would get a quick bounce just about the excitement about the stock. I was wrong, and when you are wrong you don’t wait, you just get out. So I took a beating and left,”

“I mean if you look at other companies like LinkedIn, they issued 8.4 million shares and the stock skyrocketed. If Facebook would have come out with 8.4 million shares, instead of 421 million, the stock would be at about $200 right now. So it was just the circumstances that led to me getting in and out,”

He also admits it’s not just Facebook, that everybody is dealing with the same problems; how to monetize advertising? Also, he believes there will be be an increase in monetizing mobile, but it’s a challenge every internet company will have to face.

The good news for Facebook and their investors is that stock climbed to over $32 today on the Nasdaq. In fact, shares of the company have rose 20% since their $25.52 low on June 6th. We’ll see what happens.

The remarks come from a court filing by Facebook and Morgan Stanley who seek to combine more than 40 state and federal lawsuits brought against Facebook and their lead underwriters stemming from the events of their May 18th initial public offering.

Essentially, the filing states that Facebook and their underwriters didn’t do anything illegal or out of the ordinary regarding the IPO, and that the poor trading performance is more the result of Nasdaq’s, now infamous, trading desk computer glitch than anything else.

The court filing explains:

“The commencement of trading in Facebook shares was delayed as a result of problems with Nasdaq’s software systems, which impaired the orderly execution of trades and price levels,”

Facebook also released all of the communications they had with the Securities and Exchange Commission in a separate filing in the months before the IPO period. This is a common practice for a company after the confidential period during an IPO ends.

In the meantime, Facebook shares are trading up around $32, which should come as a relief to investors. The stock climb seems to coincide with ComScore’s latest report on the effectiveness of the company’s advertising model. According to ComScore, Facebook brand advertising does result in a significant lift when it comes time for consumers to purchase and select on brand over another.

So, while we might not see Facebook trading back trading at $38 per share, there still seems to be a lot of interest in owning stock in the company. As with any investment, only time will tell.

Despite closing just above $10 per share on Friday, early morning trading reached as high as $11.07, and Groupon is currently trading for $10.75 per share.

Scott Devitt, analyst for Morgan Stanley comments on Groupon’s performance:

“Groupon has emerged as the leading local e-commerce company in an industry with significant barriers to scale,”

“Its advantage due to scale (largest merchant and customer base) and technology (8 acquisitions year to date) has enabled it to accelerate North American revenue growth while improving its margins.”

Devitt also believes Groupon has the capacity to meet the following highly-debated challenges:

* Preserve its competitive position as local e-commerce leader…

* Maintain a ~40% take rate within daily deals segment…

* Continue to grow revenue while expanding margins and…

* Avoid deal fatigue by continuing to improve targeting and personalization.

If you recall, a little over a week ago, Groupon was suffering badly on the stock market as shares fell below $10, and the overall market value of the company slumped below a $6 billion market cap, or less than what Googled offered to buy them for back in 2010.

It is also worth noting that Groupon’s IPO lockup period just ended, and some investors may have been eager to relinquish their shares of the company after a calendar year of poor performance.

This doesn’t mean Groupon is out of the woods yet, but it is a bit of good news in a very conservative investment market. Perhaps Groupon can get its stock back up to IPO prices.