Israel

Israel-based SundaySky has raised its first round of $8 million. Carmel Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners led the funding, which the company will use to expand its marketing and business development activities in the U.S. as well as continue to develop its products. Carmel Ventures' general partner Avi Zeevi and Globespan Capital Partners' managing director Jonathan Seelig will be joining the board of directors as well. Founded in 2006, SundaySky provides real time, automatically generated video for e-commerce, social nets and other media sites.

—Peer39's semantic ad net bites the dust: Peer39 has decided to close its "Semantic Ad Network" and laid off its four-person sales staff as it hopes to focus more on the technology side of its business.

Cambridge, England-based technology VC deals tracker Library House, which went in to administration last month after the venture sector itself dried up, is selling its database to Dow Jones's VentureSource, a larger, similar service. Administrator Leonard Curtis made the sale on December 23, DJ said on Tuesday.

Superfish, a startup focused on visual search, has raised $5.3 million in a second round of funding, peHUB says, citing a regulatory filing. DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures (the Israeli partner of U.S. investment firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson), the Individuals' Venture Fund and Xenia Venture Capital participated in the round. The company has offices in both Israel and Silicon Valley, though there has been no official product launch.

Marketing and SEO Guru Joel Leyden is reaching out through search engine optimization and social media to help Jews and Christians express their support for the Israel Defense Force and Israeli civilians. The Facebook forum, "I Support the Israel Defense Forces In Preventing Terror Attacks From Gaza," created about three hours after the first strikes were made in Gaza, explains Israel's position to the world.

Two of the rare digital media IPOs planned have done something not that rare these days: withdrawing their IPOs. NameMedia, the domain name media company formed by Kelly Conlin, previously CEO of Primedia and IDG respectively, and Eyeblaster, the online rich ad format company, have both filed notices with SEC to withdraw their planned IPOs. Both cites the usual, "market conditions".

—Take-Two (NSDQ: TTWO) retains Rockstar talent : Long live GTA. Take-Two has signed new compensation deals with key creatives from Rockstar Games, with terms that will keep the minds behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise with the publisher until at least 2012. The previous contracts were set to expire in 2009.

Sports data provider Stats has acquired a rather buzzy company SportVU, a Tel Aviv, Israel based motion capture tech provider, for an undisclosed sum.

The latest NBA expansion covers two growth areas for the league: international and broadband. NBA League Pass Broadband International is now available in 19 countries. The subscription includes access to 40-plus live games a week with play-by-play in English and VOD for 24 hours after they air. Some live games will be blacked out. Pay options include full season ($85 through Nov. 11; $100 after), monthly and daily. The international version follows

—Gigya Gets New CEO : Fresh off an $11 million cash injection, widget distributor Gigya has named ValueClick vet David Yovanno its new CEO, Mediapost reports.