In a blatant attempt to raise their profile in the niche category of the upcoming social networking awards, the Minti folks are putting out a release tomorrow to say that they (or more correctly, their owners Vibe Capital) have raised a further AU $1.2M in funding, on top of the AU $1.2M they raised previously. They've also purchased a strategic stake in Market United, the contracted developer of the vibEngine platform that Minti runs on. Also mentioned in the release: they've secured shareholder debt facilities to "fund capital requirements into the foreseeable future".
What's more interesting is that Minti's "MySpace for parents" is the first of many vertical social sites that will be built on the vibEngine software. vibEngine includes features similar to those on Flickr, eBay, YouTube, Yahoo Answers, they claim, and they're now using it to build more niche sites and licensing it for others to use.
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