In the "more evidence that you can still raise funding" department, Ifbyphone, a start-up that makes apps for mobile phones and provides voice infrastructure, has secured $4.6 million in second rounding funding. While Ifbyphone doesn't appear to have a necessarily unique business plan, what they do have is a proven business model. The start-up roped in funding after developing two successful apps for the iPhone, and another that works with Google Analytics, both of which are geared toward small to mid-sized business owners. Given that there's been a dearth of really good business apps on the iPhone, that may have been one factor prompting investors to throw more money at Ifbyphone - who could easily capitalize on that unfilled niche. Says investor Ken Green of Spring Mill Venture Partners regarding why they invested in the start-up:

"We believe that Ifbyphone represents the next great wave of Internet-enabled business services, allowing small and medium-sized businesses access to capabilities previously only available to their larger competitors. This kind of service offers an opportunity to level the competitive playing field."

So just what kind of apps did Ifbyphone develop? For the iPhone, they created an app that sets up a conference call with contacts from a user's address book, as well as another app that allows users to send one voice message to multiple recipients. Perhaps most appealing to Ifbyphone's investors though, was the neat tool they developed that uses Google Analytics to measure the success of a marketing campaign. How that works is when a phone number that was included in a print, television, or Internet advertisement is called, information about the person calling can be collected, including where they're located and other details. For a small business owner who has a limited marketing budget, that kind of information can tell them whether their advertisements are reaching the demographic they're trying to go after, and can indicate the success of a particular campaign. It's not rocket science, but it is useful—proving that you don't have to develop the next great tech gadget just to pique a VC's interest.