A couple of small deals to prove that funding still goes on despite the crunch: Belgian ad creation software developer Specle has won funding of £150,000 in a first round led my Avonmore Developments, which previously invested in Groupspaces. Private investors Simon and Dale Murray also the join the round with the former joining the Specle board. Specle’s software allows magazine and newspaper staff to create print ads to fit using the standard Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) InDesign publishing system. Steve Daykin, CFO of contract magazine publisher 7 Publishing, also joins the company’s board. Release.

Elsewhere, graduate recruitment site BraveNewTalent.com has received £102,000 in a loan from beleaguered (and partly state-owned) Royal Bank of Scotland as part of the Government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme to stimulate growth among mall and medium sized businesses, as TCUK reports. The site, founded by 25-year-old Lucian Tarnowski, is one of several social media-styled recruitment sites that allows grads to interact directly with would-be employers via Facebook and the rest. The EFG loans are 75 percent guaranteed by the government with banks picking up the rest.