Synageva Biopharma Corp., a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Waltham, Mass., recently closed on $30 million in funding.  Baker Brothers Investments led the funding, which included Tullis Dickerson and Four Partners.

As part of the transaction, Synageva announced that Robyn Samuels, vice president with Tisch Family Interests, has joined its board of directors representing Four Partners.

“We are excited to have the backing of these world-class equity firms, as shown by their investment in Synageva,” said Sanj K. Patel, Synageva’s president and chief executive officer. “This investment is a strong affirmation of the technological advances we have made with the Synageva Expression Platform, the tremendous potential of our development programs, and the expertise of our science and management teams.”

Synageva Expression Platform features transporting agents and protein production, processing and purification systems. It provides a number of sustainable advantages over current expression systems for developing and commercializing protein therapeutics, including high expression levels, the ability to produce certain proteins with improved activity and/or safety profiles, according to the company.

In other venture capital news:

• The Mayfield Fund, along with Clearstone Venture Partners and IDG Ventures Asia, recently infused the Rubicon Project with $5 million. The money will be used to fuel acquisitions, research and development, infrastructure and international expansion, said the company, which seeks to automate the online advertising industry.
  
  “We now count many of the world’s largest media brands as loyal, happy customers. Up next is expanding our technology to answer customer demand around the optimization of non-guaranteed ad inventory; we’ve established the largest source of demand online for premium publishers, and we’ll extend that demand opportunity to all of their inventory,” said Frank Addante, the project’s chief executive officer and founder.
  
  The Los Angeles-based company is reporting 150 percent revenue growth over the fourth quarter of 2008, despite a typical drop in post-holiday season ad spending.
  
  “In today’s economy, markets move towards efficiency. Just like we saw when we invested in Overture, companies like them and Google and now the Rubicon Project thrive during economic change,” said Sumant Mandal, managing director at Clearstone Venture Partners.
  
  Navin Chaddha is Mayfield Fund’s managing director.
  
• Sunnyvale-based Norwest Venture Partners, along with Canaan partners, invested $12 million in online peer lending network LendingClub.com. Morgenthaler Ventures led this second round of funding.
  
  LendingClub.com is a lending network, which has loaned more than $34 million, according to company data.
  
  “This additional capital will allow us to continue to expand our capabilities and accelerate the growth of our customer base. Lending Club is proud to be building a network where individuals come together to provide financial value to each other beyond what traditional banks can provide,” said Renaud Laplanche, Lending Club’s chief executive officer and founder.
  
  Promod haque is Norwest Venture Partner’s managing partner.
  
• NuView Systems Inc., a payroll software tool company, raised $5 million from Petra Capital Partners, a private equity company based in Nashville.
  
  NuView is Petra's third investment from its newest fund, Petra Growth Fund II L.P.
  
  "We are thrilled to be partnering with Petra Capital Partners, a world-class private equity firm with a long, successful history. This is particularly important in that most venture funding has stopped in this economy, but our comprehensive product suite, and advanced Enterprise 2.0 technology platform, is actually more in demand now," said Shafiq Lokhandwala, NuView System’s chief executive officer.
  
  "Currently, there is a need for flexible human resources and payroll tools as companies look to re-build and reorganize staff and resources, redeploy existing talent to fill gaps created by reductions, automate process and streamline operations, build a global team, push policies out globally, retain key talent, and address a whole host of other staffing issues," Lokhandwala added.
  
• Cooliris Inc., a company advancing visual navigation for the Internet, raised $15 million in round-two funding from blue chip investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, The Westly Group and the T-Mobile Venture Fund.
  
  Cooliris also debuted its newest application, the Cooliris Wall. The wall allows users to scan an expansive 3D wall of content from popular social media sites like YouTube and Facebook, professional news and entertainment sources, popular gaming sites, and users’ own computers, said the Palo Alto-based company.
  
  The Cooliris interface allows users to scan through significantly more content on Web sites like YouTube, than is possible in a standard Web interface, said the company.
  
  “With Cooliris we are enabling users to visually explore the world of information on the Web,” said Austin Shoemaker, Cooliris chief technology officer. “The Cooliris Wall represents a shift beyond linked text toward a more efficient and intuitive navigation experience,” he added.
  
  Soujanya Bhumkar is Cooliris’ chief executive officer.
  
• ExtraHop Networks Inc., a network management company, raked in $5.1 million in first-round funding, led by the Madrona Venture Group and with participation from angel investors including Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Ning, and Ben Horowitz, the former chief executive officer of Opsware and senior vice president of software at Hewlitt Packard. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and fuel investments in customer acquisition, product development, and marketing, according to the Seattle-based company.
  
  “In this economic climate, the ExtraHop network- and application-management solution brings compelling value to information technology organizations looking to lower cost and improve delivery quality. The team has demonstrated strong traction in the marketplace by successfully launching ExtraHop’s flagship product in late 2008 and securing numerous customer wins,” said Matt McIlwain, Madrona Venture’s managing director at Madrona Venture Group.
  
  Jesse Rothstein and Raja Mukerji, engineering veterans from F5 Networks, founded ExtraHop in 2007.
  
• PubMatic Inc., an ad revenue optimization company for online publishers and based in Palo Alto, Calif., raised an undisclosed amount of second round funding, adding to a $7 million first round of backing in early 2008. Return backers include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus India Capital, and Helion Ventures.
  
  The funding serves as the catalyst for PubMatic’s global expansion and the unveiling of a new ad service, PubMatic Premier, which is designed specifically to increase the revenue that large media companies make from online ad networks while also protecting media companies’ brands, said the company.
  
  “Large media companies have the potential to increase their ad network revenue by millions of dollars per year with the proper ad network monetization strategy,” said PubMatic co-founder and chief executive officer, Rajeev Goel. “PubMatic Premier is an all inclusive solution that increases revenue, reduces ad operations cost, and gives publishers ultimate control over their brands.”