E-Consultancy reports on the spectacular round for Euopean Web 2.0 start up Netvibes:

The Paris and London-based start-up, which claims to have recruited five million users of its customisable Ajax home page, plans to use the funding to help it take on rivals such as Microsoft's Live.com and Pageflakes.

According to Siliconbeat, the move follows another round of financing in March, which involved, among others, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and Kelkoo founder Pierre Chappaz.

Index Ventures and Accel contributed to the latest round of investment, which along with Bebo's recent cash injection from Benchmark Capital amounts to one of the largest such deals of the year so far.

The firm, formed by journalist Tariq Krim last year, claims to be adding users at a rate of one million per month, and the new money will undoubtedly help it to expand its user base further.

Risky move if you ask me. Netvibes was probably valued something between US$45 million to US$60 million - that is serious money for a rather low key application and no actual revenue base. Netvibes is a great tool but has little that can't or won't be copied straight away.