Kelly Smith | Made in Seattle

I’m pleased to be able to announce support for another fellow RealNetworks alumn in that we have announced an investment in Shelfari this week along with Amazon.com and others. This article points out the approximate investment of about $1 million. Shelfari also announced the formation of its advisory board, which includes Alex Algard of WhitePages.com; Brad Feld of Foundry Group; Geoff Entress of Madrona Venture Group; Andy Sack of Judy’s Book; and (me) Kelly Smith of Curious Office.

Congrats to Josh and team for a great job getting over this important hurdle.

Well I’m a bit late in posting this but it is true. The first company we developed internally at Curious Office (and where I am the CEO) just raised a pile of money.

The round was led by German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck though there was also participation from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Crosslink Capital.

Seattle angel investors — including former Expedia Chief Executive Erik Blachford, PhotoDisc co-founder Tom Hughes and Second Avenue Partners co-founder Nick Hanauer — also participated. As did the European Founders Fund, the venture firm created by the German brothers who sold Alando.de to eBay in 1999.

Pretty exciting huh? Here’s to a big 2007.

Kelly Smith