Venture capitalists are currently enamored with cloud-based startups, and are investing heavily in the cloud computing industry, according to a post on Cloudtimes.org.

According to statistics shared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, venture capitalists invested as much as $6.9 billion on "Internet-specific" startups in 2011 alone, with "Internet-specific" being a proxy term for "cloud" because that's what most of them are doing. The $6.9 billion investment is a 68% increase from last year.

In Q4 alone, investments related to cloud amounted to $1.8 billion, which is above the $1.3 billion invested on biotech, and the $883 million invested into cleantech in the same year. It's more than just the amount, anyway. The amount of deals is also increasing - VCs funded as many as 1,004 software startups related to the cloud last 2011.

Does the U.S. Understand Cloud Computing?
According to a national survey, the average American consumer doesn't understand what cloud computing is or how it works.

The survey, commissioned by Citrix, showed that many U.S. consumers believed it to be weather-related, or something to do with pillows, drugs, heaven, outerspace and toilet paper, according to an article at ZDNet.

However, the research - which included more than 1,000 participants and was conducted this month - did show that even when people did not fully understand cloud computing, they often recognized that it has economic benefits and can drive business growth.

When asked what "the cloud" was, 29 percent said "a fluffy white thing", whereas only 16 percent connected the phrase with a network used to store, access and share data across Internet-connected devices.

Cloud computing was found to be widely misunderstood. The survey found that:

51 percent of respondents, including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather can interfere with cloud computing.

95 percent are actually using cloud services today via online shopping, banking, social networking and file sharing, even though a third believe it to be a "thing of the future."

59 percent believe the "workplace of the future" will exist entirely in the cloud.

Rackspace Acquires Email Application Integrator Mailgun
Rackspace has bought Mailgun in an effort to expand its portfolio of cloud-based email services and applications.

Mailgun is a provider of Web services for integrating email inboxes into applications, according to an article on eWEEK.com.

Mailgun's service optimizes the email capability of an organization's applications and websites with all the analytics and data needed to measure the impact through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allows users to send, receive and track email from within their applications. Mailgun is integrated into platforms such as Heroku, AppFog and Engine Yard, and counts among its current customers collaboration software developer 37Signals, native mobile software developer kit (SDK) specialist Parse and The Financial Times news service.

"Rackspace is dedicated to providing the tools that our customers need to build their technology stack on the Rackspace Open Cloud," Pat Matthews, senior vice president of corporate development at Rackspace, said in a prepared statement. "Mail is a core component of nearly every Website and application today. Our customers are asking for this, and Mailgun is the right company to help us deliver it in a tightly integrated way."