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Zivity, a company creating a new category of subscription-based social networking for the 18 and over market, has raised $7 million in Series B financing from venture capital firms BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund.

John Malloy, partner and a founder of BlueRun Ventures, and Luke Nosek, managing partner at Founders Fund, will join Zivity co-founders Scott Banister, Cyan Banister and Jeffrey Wescott on the companys board of directors.

BlueRun Ventures, which led the round of financing, has previously collaborated with Scott Banister at Slide, the personal media network best known for its embedded social networking applications, and PayPal, the online payment company now owned by eBay.

Zivity, much like Slide and PayPal before it, has a driven and talented team focused on challenging the status quo and creating a large new market opportunity, said Malloy of BlueRun. Zivity is introducing an innovative business model that reflects a major shift in the maturation of the Web. We look forward to helping build Zivity into a global media platform.

Zivity.com is a community-powered showcase promoting female beauty and expression through professional-quality photography. Subscribers to Zivity pay $10 per month and distribute 40 percent of their subscription fee to the participating models and photographers via Zivitys innovative dollar-backed voting system. Each vote cast delivers cash to the content creators.

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Tags: BlueRun Ventures, eBay, European Founders Fund, Zivity

The Second Life experience is coming to mobile. The 3D virtual world platform, created by Linden Lab will soon be available on 3G handsets via Vollee’s streaming mobile games service. Beta trials for Vollee’s new mobile offering for the Second Life Grid platform (an inter-connected platform which extends beyond the mainland of Second Life itself) will be open to those who pre-register.

Vollee’s Second Life mobile service will enable access to the virtual world of Second Life for Residents to explore, interact and communicate on-line. The Second Life mobile experience reformats the online world to fit on mobile phone screens while mapping the keys on handsets to commands in-world. Existing Residents can simply log-in and people new to Second Life can also try out the online world for the first time through the mobile service. With a simple download to their 3G mobile handset, anyone can enjoy their online Second Life session while on the move.

“What we have developed is a service which, for the first time, allows you to access a rich persistent virtual 3D world the way it is supposed to be experienced on your phone,” said Martin Dunsby, CEO, Vollee. “This is a true ‘before and after moment’ in which mobile is living up to its potential in serving as an always on, connected platform.”

“For Linden Lab, this represents an intuitive way to extend the reach and accessibility of the Second Life Grid platform,” said Chris Mahoney, Business Deveopment Manager, Linden Lab. “This is a great way for Second Life Residents to stay connected to their friends, business and experiences in-world, wherever they are.”

Vollee’s proprietary solution is the only one on the market that can stream any high-end PC title to mobile, including [Read more]

Tags: Benchmark Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Kreos Capital, Second Life, Vollee