Whenever a US company sells equity to raise capital, they are required to complete a Form D filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. More than 17,000 companies and partnerships made nearly 28,000 Form D filings in 2007. While you can't see the contents of these forms online, the SEC does provide a search tool to allow you to identify what companies have made new filings.

FundingSleuth.com is a free automated alert service, allowing you to track up to 50 companies and receive an email alert if there are any changes in their SEC filings. Just read about a company in Techcrunch or VentureBeat? Track their fundraising progress on FundingSleuth. Want to know when your competition raises money? Just enter the Company name into FundingSleuth and get an email alert when their round closes.

More information on FundingSleuth can be found here. This service is provided by First Round Capital.