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Eye-Fi, the maker of those nifty, wireless memory cards that automatically sync digital camera photos to your devices, as well as to cloud services like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and YouTube, is today announcing it has raised $20 million in Series D funding. The round was led by NTT DOCOMO, the largest mobile operator in Japan, something which hints at the company’s plans towards further international expansion through carrier relationships.

Also participating in the new round were existing investors Shasta Ventures, Opus Capital and TransLink Capital. In addition, Eye-Fi announced an expansion to its executive team, which sees former Skype and eBay exec Michele Don Durbin joining as Eye-Fi’s VP of Marketing. Don Durbin will be involved in helping the company with its planned international growth, the company says, both geographically and across product categories.

With the new partnership between NTT DOCOMO and Eye-Fi, the operator’s 59 million subscribers will be able to automatically upload photos from their camera to mobile phones, as well as sync them between other devices, including digital photo frames. The difference now with the carrier-enabled activation is that a computer would never have to be involved in the process.

The company tells us that traditionally, Eye-Fi’s memory cards have to be set up using a computer before the automatic syncing takes place. For NTT DOCOMO customers, it’s about cutting out the middleman. Eye-Fi cards will be able to be activated and configured directly from customers’ phones, after which Eye-Fi’s apps will begin the automatic syncing they’re known for.

While cord-free wireless sync has always been Eye-Fi’s primary value proposition, what’s interesting about this partnership (and associated funding raise) is what it means for the future of the company. Wireless SD cards, while handy, are meant for digital cameras and recorders – an industry that has been heavily impacted by the growth of smartphones. Look at Flip’s shuttering or Kodak’s move into bankruptcy, as example of how much impact smartphones have had on this market. For casual consumers, a smartphone camera is often “good enough. Plus, it’s always on hand.

Eye-Fi has partly acknowledged this shift, with the recent introduction of mobile applications for the iPhone, iPad and Android, which instantly upload photos from Eye-Fi SD cards to mobile devices – devices, which can then, in turn, upload photos to the cloud. But with the carrier partnership in place, there seems to be new potential for Eye-Fi to eventually move beyond its SD card roots, into services for smartphone owners whose mobile phone is their primary photo-taking equipment, as opposed to a digital camera.

The company says that it saw over 300+ million photos and videos uploaded last year alone, following tens of millions of investment into its technology. Imagine how many more photos could be moved if it didn’t just cut computers out of the equation, but standalone digital cameras, too.

Chip developer GainSpan has raised a new $18 million round of funding to help the company create the next generation of ultra-low-power Wi-Fi chips.

GainSpan’s goal is to create incredibly low-power Wi-Fi modules and drivers that are suitable for all kinds of devices, including household appliances. On top of creating hardware, the company also develops embedded Wi-Fi software. The five markets the company said it focuses on are: healthcare and fitness, smart energy, industrial control, commercial/building automation and consumer home.

The new funding round was led by existing investors Sigma Partners, Opus Capital, New Venture Partners and Intel Capital. New investors Hatteras Funds and Mobile Internet Capital participated along with prior investors In-Q-Tel and Camp Ventures.

“Being able to attract such world-class companies is the ultimate seal of approval that we are in the right place at the right time with the right solution,” said Greg Winner, President and CEO of GainSpan, in a statement. “While the debate over what wireless technology works best will continue, it’s hard to argue with powerful financial backers, real customers and proven, innovative products in a hot market.”

San Jose, Calif.-based GainSpan was founded in 2006 and maintains a research and development team in India. With the new funding, the company has raised about $56 million, including a $5 million investment back in November 2010.

Filed under: deals, green, mobile

Wanova, a turnkey desktop management cloud provider, has raised $10 million in series B funding from Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures and Opus Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $23 million.

Wanova provides Distributed Desktop Virtualization solutions that centralize control of the desktop infrastructure while optimizing the user experience and providing full support for offline use. Wanova’s flagship product Mirage, combines centralized PC image management with the ability to run images natively on a PC, allowing enterprise to reduce desktop Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and improve IT operations.

With Mirage, PC images including personalization settings run locally on a PC allowing users to take advantage of PC native performance, including the ability to run multimedia applications and work while disconnected from the network.

Wanova actually just scored a big win in the IP world, announcing its first U.S. patent for its centralization technology that provides layered, single image management of PCs in the network, local execution of the image on the PC, and optimized synchronization between local and centralized images.

The new funding will be used towards building global sales and support teams and product development.