San Francisco-based Sugar Media, which specializes in Web sites aimed at women, cut its ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capitol.

Sequoia has been an existing venture investor, having put $5 million into the start-up in late 2006. NBC, a unit of GE (GE), invested $10 million in 2007.

It is unclear at what discount the shares were bought back at, but it seems likely. NBC had been selling online advertising for the site, an arrangement which had previously ended.

Sugar, which runs the flagship PopSugar.com site, also announced it has bought video shopping start-up, Shopflick, and had hired its CEO to run a new Los Angeles-based entertainment unit called Sugar Digital Entertainment.

David Grant was former president of Fox TV Studios and his new unit will be charged with expanding into video, TV and film with Sugar-branded content.

Here’s a video interview BoomTown did with Sugar in 2007:

And here’s the full press release:

Sugar Inc. Launches Sugar Digital Entertainment with former Fox TV President

New Unit to Expand Sugar Brand into Video, TV and Film; Sugar has also Acquired Video Shopping Start-Up Shopflick.com and Completed a $16 million Series C Funding from Sequoia Capital

San Francisco, CA, June 1, 2009–Sugar Inc. announced today a series of steps to expand and diversify the fast-growing woman’s lifestyle media company.

Sugar is launching Sugar Digital Entertainment, an LA-based unit that will expand the Sugar brand into online video, television, film, videogames and other content formats. David Grant, former President of Fox TV Studios, Exec VP of the FOX Network and founder and CEO of Shopflick.com, joins Sugar as President of SDE with a mandate to work with talent and media partners on Sugar-branded projects.

Sugar has acquired Shopflick.com, the video-powered fashion marketplace founded by Grant in 2008. Shopflick is a pioneer in online video-driven shopping, with a critically-acclaimed brand that has quickly built a following with both designers and shoppers. Shopflick will enable Sugar’s ShopStyle–the leading social shopping destination for women–to pioneer a new video-driven commerce offering for its merchant partners.

Sugar also announced that it has completed its Series C funding by securing $16M from existing investor Sequoia Capital. Sugar intends to use the funds for acquisitions and international expansion to support the company’s growth into a major media company targeted to women’s lifestyle. In conjunction with the transaction, the Company has repurchased shares sold in 2007 to NBC Universal.

“These moves further our rapid growth into a leading media company,” said Brian Sugar, founder and CEO of Sugar Inc. “Sugar Digital Entertainment, run by an executive with a successful track record in television and digital, will leverage our brand and expertise into online video, TV and film. Shopflick’s team and online video expertise will enable ShopStyle to further leverage the powerful relationship between content and commerce, an area of vast potential online. In short, we have become a media company with exceptionally diversified revenue streams encompassing advertising, commerce and license fees.”

David Grant, founder and CEO of Shopflick.com said: “Sugar has tapped into the passions and interests of women in a way other media companies can only dream of, so I see this as a big opportunity to help the founders take an already successful company to another level. Sugar’s brand and expertise in women will play a role in creating great video content on all platforms, including online, TV, film and wherever smart, passionate woman are gathering. I am equally excited about finding a terrific home for the Shopflick team and the opportunity to turn our vision of video-driven shopping into reality for the millions of women who visit Sugar every month.”

Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd College, has just been named as the 10th member of the Microsoft board.

The company also announced “that the board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.13 per share. The dividend is payable June 18, 2009, to shareholders of record on May 21, 2009.”

Klawe’s appointment is interesting. She is rather sharp–what a shock–according to her bio, which lists impressive credits as a computer scientist.

Said a Microsoft (MSFT) spokesperson:

“Klawe has made significant research contributions in several areas of mathematics and computer science including functional analysis, discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, and the design and use of interactive multimedia for mathematics education.”

Klawe is the second woman on the board, after Dina Dublon, former chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

In a statement, Klawe said she would make sure Microsoft would pay more attention to gender issues.

Said Klawe:

“The underrepresentation of women in the fields of science and engineering is one of the critical issues facing the computing industry….I’m looking forward to helping the company continue to make progress on this important issue.”

BoomTown is with you on that, Maria.

Here’s the full press release, after the jump:

Microsoft Adds New Board Member and Declares Quarterly Dividend
Maria Klawe, Ph.D., leading computer scientist and educator, to join board; dividend of $0.13 per share payable in June.

In addition to Klawe, Microsoft’s board of directors consists of Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman; Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO; James I. Cash Jr., Ph.D., James E. Robison professor and senior associate dean emeritus of Harvard Business School; Dina Dublon, former chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase; Raymond V. Gilmartin, former chairman, president and CEO of Merck & Co. Inc.; Reed Hastings, founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix Inc.; David F. Marquardt, general partner at August Capital; Charles H. Noski, former vice chairman of AT&T Corp.; and Dr. Helmut Panke, former chairman of the board of management at BMW AG.

Last night, I was the master of ceremonies, as I have been for several years, at the laudable annual Astia Awards Dinner, which celebrated venture capital firms that support women-led companies.

And VC Tim Draper really went above and beyond in showing–quite literally–his support for his female entrepreneurs.

The San Francisco-based nonprofit does work to accelerate funding and growth of early-stage women-led businesses in life sciences, high technology and clean technology, with chapters in Silicon Valley, London and New York.

The NVCA member firms honored at the show, which is sponsored by Deloitte and Fenwick & West, by Astia for making the most investments in companies with a woman CEO were Draper Fisher Jurvetson, InterWest Partners, Prolog Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.

In addition, Allan Will, founding managing director of Split Rock Partners, received the Deloitte Leadership in Mentoring Award for encouraging female CEOs in technology-based fields.

Other award winners this year included: Anu Acharya, founder and CEO of Ocimum Biosolutions, who got the Life Science Innovator Award; Diane Greene, founder of VMware, who was awarded the Technology Innovator Award; and Pam Marrone, founder and CEO of Marrone Organic Innovations, who received the Clean Tech Innovator Award.

But it was Draper who stole the show, held at the de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

He could not attend, but made his presence known by doing a video in which Draper sings very badly, but with incredible enthusiasm.

But before he starts crooning, Draper takes off an article of clothing for every woman-led company he funded.

Let’s just say, while he should be proud of his investments in women CEOs, it would have gotten very dicey if DFJ had done just one more.

But see for yourself–or, more correctly, see a lot of Tim Draper, in this video:

Yesterday, BoomTown was hanging in Hollywood at ContentNext’s EconCeleb’s conference, where I did an onstage interview with legendary editor Bonnie Fuller about the massive impact of the Internet on celebrity journalism.

With its instant ability to deliver news, video and more, sites like TMZ, PerezHilton, The Superficial and Yahoo’s (YHOO) omg! have become massive drivers of traffic on the Internet and–despite the saturation–the arena is still growing fast, especially among women users.

But for those not in the know about Fuller’s impact on how celebrity journalism has developed to its current power, she is the reason–more than any other modern editor–humanity now knows every move made by the unholy trio of Paris, Lindsay and, most of all, Britney.

As founding editor of US Weekly (with stints at Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and other mags), and as the editorial director of the parent company of Star magazine, Fuller’s various editorial innovations–celebrities are just like us!–are now commonplace.

And like a lot of old media stars, Fuller is now working on her own new celeb-focused digital and media company, which she says is aimed at women 20 to 40 years old, plunging headlong into the Web arena.

Here’s my video interview with her in an alcove of the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, where we discuss what she is up to and where online celebrity coverage is going (Britney 24-7!):

Recently, Julie Wainwright came to visit AllThingsD HQ (also known as BoomTown’s abode) to talk about her newest venture.

Wainwright, as many recall, was the former CEO of Web 1.0’s most memorable flameout–Pets.com.

While a lot of the attention it garnered was probably undeserved–after all, Pets.com was no worse than a lot of goofy start-ups out there, except for its irksome sock puppet mascot–Wainwright will forever be linked with the failed e-commerce company.

Nonetheless, the longtime Web exec–before Pets.com, she was CEO of Berkeley Systems and also Reel.com–has just launched SmartNow.com.

The site is a far cry from shipping bags of kibble–aimed at women 35 to 55 and using Web 2.0 features and lots of video to deliver information on health issues, self-improvement, spirituality, nutrition, fitness and a range of other topics.

SmartNow uses experts–such as doctors, dieticians, diet coaches, inspirational writers, psychologists, fashion and beauty professionals, and even humorists–as well as letting users and women’s groups deliver personal stories.

That includes, for example, Melissa Bates, who tells of her bout with breast cancer in a gripping video.

The 51-year-old Wainwright got the inspiration for the site from her own personal efforts and challenges–including shutting down Pets.com and struggling through a divorce right after that.

While looking for helpful info, she noticed that there were few sites aimed at women like her, so she decided to start one. Self-funded, Wainwright says she is now talking to some angel investors.

Here’s Wainwright talking about her new start-up:

As BoomTown argued yesterday in a piece on the landscape of Yahoo if Microsoft completes its purchase of the Internet portal, Yahoo (YHOO) certainly knows how to make online content.

As we wrote: “For all its history, right down to today, even with all these dumb widgets competing for users’ attention, Yahoo continues to natively understand how to to entertain, inform and serve up their own and others content to consumers.”

Case in point, an attractive new site it launched today called Shine, which is aimed at women from their mid-20s to their mid-50s.

As you can see from the image below, it is a very well-done site, incorporating a lot of the good stuff in the same genre from around the Web.

Does it look a bit like the sassy properties of Sugar Inc.? Is it light and frothy like Glam Media? Does it feel a bit like DailyCandy, in its focus on the shopping as a sport? And, is it as helpful as iVillage (and does it even “borrow” a wiggly “i”)?

Yes indeedy to all!

Imitation is a form of flattery, I suppose, although Yahoo’s site feels fresher than any out there and it has an aspirational and hip feel that women will like, I think.

I’d call it an Eat-Pray-Love mood, with a lot of Oprah mixed in.

More importantly, it is clearly a good market for Yahoo’s advertisers, who all aim to reach this high-spending but underserved demographic online.

Yahoo is trying to reinvigorate its lackluster efforts here, as well as making plans to further drill down into related topics like parenting, sex, food and wellness that are present on the Shine site now.

While it looks a lot like a blog plus, Shine obviously has social written all over it and a wide range of communications tools will be easy to layer over the service.

It also is smart in its partnering with lots of media companies like Hearst and in pointing across the Web to give users a more comprehensive offering.

But can Yahoo compete in a very crowded field with such a late entrant? Probably. It recently put up a celebrity site called OMG, which has grabbed significant traffic quickly.

And while we honestly could care less if men look bad in skinny jeans (um, yes!), there is probably something on the very-full page of interest to everyone.

The Shine site has Brandon Holley as its editor-in-chief, but the effort in the arena is being helmed by Amy Iorio, who is the VP/GM of Yahoo’s Lifestyles unit. It all rolls up under Yahoo Media SVP Scott Moore.

While Yahoo PR will probably blah-blah too much about “starting points,” which is the latest buzz word from top brass, related to Shine, it should just hush up and realize Yahoo’s many owned-and-operated media conglomerations just need decent support and promotion to stay as strong as they are and to keep them as one of the bright spots at the company.

Here’s a screen shot of the site (click on the image once to make it appear on another page and then again to make it larger):

That site, Wowowow.com–The Women on the Web–is now up and running, aimed at women over 40. The site is designed to be a kind of digital conversation among Stahl and her friends, in the form of blogs, questions, interviews and letters.

Wowowow’s five high-powered founders, each of whom contributed $200,000 to the effort, include: Stahl; well-known book publisher Joni Evans; gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec Mary Wells; and political columnist Peggy Noonan.

A lot of the fare is pretty glamorous, given that they have also recruited some flashy regular contributors, including Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Martin, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Lily Tomlin, Marlo Thomas, Julia Reed and Jane Wagner.

The impetus for the site came from Evans, CEO of Wowowow, who had gotten bored with the lack of sites aimed at smart, savvy women like herself and her friends. Although she had spent her career in an analog world, Evans was intrigued by the idea of using digital tools to create a kind of virtual cocktail party.

Topics will range from politics to fashion to relationships and more. The appeal, presumably, is that it is all mixed in with the glamor and celebrity of the partners and contributors.

Eventually, the site will jack up the interactivity, with more contributions from users, and also a social-networking element.

The business plan? Well, advertising, of course. So far, the site has gotten sponsorships from Tiffany (TIF), Sony (SNE) and Citi (C).

Here is a video I made of my visit to Wowowow’s new offices in Manhattan: