Australian-listed integrated mobile and digital communications company, Mobile Embrace, has raised $1.1 million in a private placement.

New Zealand-listed accounting software vendor, Xero, has raised a further $15.5 million from existing strategic investors in the company to support its future growth in Australia and globally, at the same time as it announced the acquisition of practice management company, Max Solutions, the developer of job, time and invoice management solution WorkflowMax.

Facebook’s goal is to redefine the social media experience by creating an immersive platform that will be the centre of people’s digital lives, making it the dominant platform for rich communications, commercial content and advertising. That’s the view of one global analyst firm that believes that if the social media giant can achieve its vision then the predictions of an IPO valuation of $100 billion might well be justified.

Cable&Wireless Worldwide is making a multi-million dollar investment in an expansion of its global data hosting capacity in a deal with specialist data centre operator, Infinity.

Australian start-up company, BugHerd, the makers of the bug tracking product by the same name, has secured $500,000 in funding from Melbourne-based venture capital firm Starfish Ventures as the company pursues a strong growth path this year, including plans to market its product globally.

Australian-based BigCommerce, which claims to be the world’s fastest growing SaaS e-commerce platform, is dangling the carrot of a $2 million fund in front of developers around the world to come forward with their integration and application ideas, and have the chance of getting some of that money to fund the development of their pet project.

The Victorian Government has boosted funding for the Geelong region information and communication technologies (ICT) cluster, ICT Geelong with $100,000 which will allow the organisation to build on past achievements and assist the continuing development of the ICT sector in the region over the next two years.

The Australian cloud computing and public cloud storage company, Ninefold, has further extended its cloud booster program by including the Sydney-based not-for-profit Fishburners community of startups.

Global digital security software vendor, Clearswift, has been acquired by mid-market growth investor Lyceum Capital, in a deal that will see increased focus on Clearswift’s content-aware security products as the newly cashed-up company pursues further market growth.

The Victorian Government is seemingly frenetic at the moment as it pursues its goal of establishing Victoria as Australia’s technology hub, trotting out announcement after announcement about new initiatives, or investment in the state, by ICT companies. And, New South Wales is up there too, competing vigorously with its Victorian rival and, for that matter, every other state or territory.