Over the past week, here’s a sampling of news highlights of members of the BizSpark One program, identifying a small number of the best companies in BizSpark, which is now comprised of over 40,000 startups.

Week of August 21-27, 2011

• § Exceedra, focused on commercial and supply chain planning, has been selected as a Bully Award finalist, which honors leading European technology, media and telecommunications companies.

• § Flite was featured in Xconomy, chronicling the company’s evolution and pivot to become a leader in cloud-based advertising, enabling marketers to deliver ads people love.

• § Kobo, a global eReading service, has announced that the Kobo eReader Touch Edition is now available at Best Buy as part of its strategy to deliver eReading to everyone everywhere. Kobo now has over 4.5 million users in more than 100 countries worldwide.

• § Virsto, provider of storage virtualization software, announced that it has added another $5 million to the $12 million Series B raised in June of this year, bringing the round total to $17 million. Southern Cross Venture Partners and Correlation Ventures join as new investors in the syndicate, which includes InterWest, August Capital and Canaan Partners.

• § David Sacks, Founder and CEO of Yammer, a leader in enterprise social networking, was featured in a CIO Central series highlighting disruptive tech leaders in social business.

Every day, we’re excited to see the growth and successes emanating from the startups in the BizSpark program. The BizSpark One program identifies a small number of the best companies in BizSpark, which is now comprised of over 40,000 startups.

Whether it’s raising a new round of funding, winning startup competitions or being highlighted by analysts and media, we’re honored to recognize and work with these companies. Just over this past week, here are some of the news highlights of BizSpark One members –

Week of August 7-13, 2011

• § BizSpark One alum, Apprenda, the deploy anywhere Platform as a Service stack for .NET, closed a $10 million Series B round of funding, led by Ignition Partners with participation from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and High Peaks Venture Partners.

• § Clever Sense, creator of ‘Alfred’, a mobile application that curates recommendations in tune with your tastes, was featured in Fortune, recapping Clever Sense’s win at the Brainstorm Tech's Startup Idol competition.

• § Evernote, a cloud-based service that helps you remember everything, was highlighted in Mashable, with CEO Phil Libin discussing why Evernote bet the success of the company on mobile and social media.

• § LiquidSpace, an application that connects people seeking workspace with venues that have space to share, was featured in a MIT Technology Review article, highlighting apps that enable a mobile workforce to find office space anytime, anywhere.

• § Metaio, a leader in augmented reality technology, was featured in TechCrunch, showing the Metaio vision in action through a demo of an “Augmented City”.

• § News360, a next-generation news personalization and aggregation service, launched its version 2.0, introducing new personalization features that present content that is relevant just for you as it learns from your activity on Facebook, Twitter and other social web services.

• § ParcelGenie, an instant gift messaging service was named as one of the five winners out of more than 1500 entries in Metro’s competition to uncover England’s most innovative new enterprises.

• § Yammer, focused on enterprise social networking was named a leader in enterprise mobile collaboration by Forrester Research. Yammer also announced this past week that they have surpassed the 3 million user mark.

Microsoft is hosting the largest Startup Weekend event ever in the Bay Area on September 9-11 at the Mountain View campus. In partnership with Demo and Startup America, this is the first time that Startup Weekend is running 3 verticals during the same weekend – with a focus on Healthcare, Education, and Gaming.

Startup Weekends are 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups. At the Mega Weekend in September, each vertical will have a winning team and those 3 teams will get a booth at Demo, and a chance to win the audience choice award. The winner of the audience choice award will present on stage at Demo! This is a huge prize and will get your Startup Weekend idea amazing exposure.

Have an awesome idea you want to pitch? We’re inviting you to sign up NOW.

To make it even easier – how about $50 off the ticket price? Use code MSFT.

More info and registration at: mega.startupweekend.org

It should be a fab mix of budding entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, geeks and hackers...

See you there….

Application Deadline* August 15

Registration for SV Program August 17
In-Person Screening Day September 8

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Program October 10-15
Investor Forum November 29

About Astia

Astia is a global non-profit organization built on a community of experts that provides innovative programs to exceptional women-led start-ups. Headquartered in San Francisco, Astia delivers programs for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, New York, Europe and India. Focused on tangible proven results, Astia is well positioned to work with start-ups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and develop the executive leadership of the women on the founding tea

The Astia model of engaging a community of experts to the benefit of the select start-ups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate: since 2003, 60% percent of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or achieved an exit within one year of presenting, totaling more than a billion dollars raised and 21 exits, including two IPOs. Astia has had significant press coverage in major media channels including The New York Times, Businessweek, Forbes and The Financial Times. For more information, visit www.astia.org.