FatLens fattens up with funding

Search upstart FatLens has raised $8 million in a first round of funding from investment firms Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. The company, which launched its beta site in early February, specializes in a niche area of Web search: event tickets. It also infuses the service with sociability by letting people send search results to friends with built-in instant messaging tools.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company plans to introduce other e-commerce searching capabilities later this year. Yet it faces a number of rivals in shopping search, including Shopping.com, Yahoo and Google's Froogle.