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Benchmark Backs Personalized Web Page Co. Pageflakes

With backing from Benchmark Capital, Pageflakes.com has joined the growing number of companies developing personalized home pages that combine news, email, search engines and other features on a single Web page.

Pageflakes raised an undisclosed amount of Series A financing from Benchmark, which Chief Executive and co-founder Christoph Janz said was between $1 million and $3 million.

Formed in October, Pageflakes designed an Ajax-based software that integrates address books, task lists, stock quotes and other features into a single Web page. The company launched a free, public beta version of the technology about three months ago, and plans to eventually generate revenue through advertising and through premium subscription services. "The idea is to offer the user a convenient one-stop access point for all the content he's interested in," said Janz.

The company joins start-ups like Netvibes Inc., a developer of personalized home pages, which raised a seed round in March from Index Ventures and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

Netvibes integrates with popular email sites like Gmail and Yahoo Mail, and offers an RSS reader for blogs and news feeds, a podcast player, and access to photo sharing site Flickr.com and the bookmark tagging site Del.icio.us.

A growing number of start-ups are jumping into the fray, with or without venture backing, and going up against homepage features from Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Computer users can now fashion personalized home pages with technology from Goowy Media Inc., Eskobo.com and ItsAStart.com, among others.

Pageflakes aims to compete with other companies by providing a more open framework, allowing independent developers to add features to the site, and by creating a better integrated technology with more choices for users. Pageflakes will use the new financing for working capital and for continued product development.

The company was formed in October. Janz is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded DealPilot.com in 1997 and later sold it to Shopping.com. Janz co-founded Pageflakes with Internet developer Omar Al Zabir and Ole Brandenburg, a former executive at German online auction site Alando.de, acquired by eBay Inc. The company has about 15 employees located in Stuttgart, Germany, and in Bangladesh and Australia.