At tonight's welcome reception for the Search Insider Summit, I was pleased to see a good mix of new and familiar faces. The beauty of this event truly is the intimacy and the networking was in full effect right off the bat. There was one interaction that stood out for me, though. As I was catching up with fellow Search Insider columnist, Gord Hotchkiss, a loyal reader came up and told him how big a fan she was of his and how awestruck she was in the presence of her hero. Now, of course, who doesn't feel that way …

Email service provider ExactTarget, which has withdrawn its application to go public, said Wednesday that three venture capital firms have infused it with $70 million in capital. The company, which had four executives attending the Summit, said the funds amount to “a similar level” of funding to what it expected to raise in its initial public offering, which it announced it was pursuing in December 2007. The three investors are Battery Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Mantagu Newhall. ExactTarget said this week that it added more than 250 new clients and upped sales by 40% in the first …