It is often exceedingly difficult to establish and launch a startup. It is also a task to secure funding to sustain the effort. This is the challenge that four-year-old Angelsoft is on a mission to conquer. Even more so now with its launch of Angelsoft 3.0. Today’s release is meant to enable entrepreneurs to more easily find financiers through the use of a group finder (comprising 400 parties at present) and direct communication through the so-called common application.

Angelsoft founder David Rose puts the release in terms that connote the most ideal middle ground yet. Something very streamlined and low on tedium and much fruitless searching on the part of the startup, that connects a broad base of angel investors in one channel or cloud. Public profiles of investment groups are made available, and news feeds are published to give money seekers a closer, more familiar view.

Call it a facilitator. Angelsoft isn’t essential for entrepreneurs and angels together to use, but it can help ease the process. The ratio of startups to cash simply makes Angelsoft a logical option to test. And the less time spent on travel than work, as it were, the better for everyone.

Combine the element of Web search with music playback and a mohawk-sporting, ciggie-smoking dinosaur, and you get MixTurtle, a new service that works as you might expect it to. Just click and play.

Ajax is responsible making it behave as it does. Some might consider it bit too heavy on the large print. Everything but the topmost menu is sized big. But this is fairly easy to get accustomed to. And there’s an upside to the design choice. The results are easy to make sense of. If your music search produces an especially large volume of material, this can really prove helpful in finding what you’re looking for.

Most impressive with MixTurtle, whose content sources are absent the picture, is the sheer speed with which information is displayed. Begin to type a keyword, and you’re immediately shown a selection of choices in a drop-down overlay. You can select one listed or continue with your query by manually inputting any desired text. Once you’ve entered your search, the rate of return is all but instant. I don’t recall testing any other engine with such alacrity. Not Seeqpod, not Songza, not any other. This little reptile has one heck of a rocket affixed to its rear, for sure.

The rest of the engine is fairly self-explanatory. As noted directly above the results box, you can add songs to a playlist, which you can call on any subsequently visit once you sign up for a free account.

To play back music, you click the artist/track label. Click again to pause. A slim submenu emerges directly below the chosen song, which displays the buffer bar, the number of sources discovered to hold said track, and an option to browse other sources. That last item may not prove too useful, however, since MixTurtle automatically begins to plays a song. (Note: sometimes a request or a user name and password will surface for a particular track.)

Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: E.Factor

20-word Description: The fastest growing social network for entrepreneurs and investors that offers health insurance to its members.

100-word Pitch: With over 47,000 members in 3 short months, the niche social market is binding entrepreneurs and investors through a virtual platform, unparalleled by anything else. Launching July 1st, entrepreneurs will no longer have to worry about health insurance or a 401K plan as both will be offered to premium members. In addition expect to see new satellites popping up like the Cambridge University E.Factor site (http://cambridge.efactor.com), business lounges across the world, and bilingual homepages for overseas members.

The E.Factor is a virtual economy and a network comprised on one thing - growing businesses. By giving entrepreneurs social tools both online and offline, members can connect, promote, and find funding.

Mashable’s Take: When you think social networks, you might think megasites. Ones with dozens of millions of members. MySpace. Facebook. Bebo. Or perhaps mid-sized operations. Those with several million members. Or perhaps a few hundred thousand. Networks with five-figure userships, meanwhile, aren’t likely to gain very lasting recognition. At least not those built for your average Joe or Jane.

E.Factor knows this. That’s why it hasn’t been seeking ordinary folk to populate its servers. At least not people interested in run of the mill networking. Instead, it’s targeting a niche. A rather unique niche. The idea is to connect entrepreneurs with investors. Everything from simple communications to startup promotion and funding solicitations and so forth. None is supported by advertising. Instead, it’s built upon the site’s paid premium accounts.

Still, that’s not the most unusual part.

What’s most intriguing about E.Factor, after 3 months in action, and with a membership 47,000-strong, is it will soon offer users health insurance and 401(k) plans.

Granted, the structure of E.Factor isn’t the most most visually appealing to come about in the last half year or so. Pay it a visit and you’re not likely to think it elegant, either in layout or in color. But its external value isn’t likely of any concern to its users. Instead, the thousands of people involved in the experiment are what make E.Factor work. And evidently its makings work well enough for the company to pursue a tangible benefits-based system for paying members. (Note: The launches of these programs will occur in less than a week’s time, on July 1.)

In addition to these fairly momentous steps, E.Factor will be spending the next several months opening physical lounges for entrepreneurs across an international spectrum to complement its online services. First Amsterdam in July, followed by more than 100 others in places elsewhere.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

Disclosure: E.Factor is a past sponsor of Mashable events

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Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Fashionspace.com

20-word Pitch: Fashionspace.com is a “social-trading” site allowing members to set up personalised profiles and shops to buy, sell or swap independently designed, vintage or 2nd hand fashion.

CEO’s 100-word Description: Fashionspace.com was conceived to give emerging creative talent a free platform to promote themselves, network and to distribute their products online. However, the site can be used to find vintage gems, swap unwanted gifts, sell your second-hand fashion or as a professional platform to sell your latest collection - like an online Portobello high street. Our objective is to become the largest peer-to-peer fashion sales platform on the web - when someone asks the question, “Where should I sell my clothes online?” The answer should be: Fashionspace.com.

Mashable’s Take: If fashion is your love and devotion, and you’re all about original material - or even unique second-hand finds, Fashionspace may just turn out to be your favorite new network. Connect with couturists, blog your needlework, swap stuff that sits in your closet with that of others, or buy and sell new and used items which you and fellow site members have designed and produced. You can do it all in one place. Clothing, jewelry, one-of-a-kind accessories. You name it, Fashionspace will showcase it.

Though it is a young thing, Fashionspace looks quite refined. Based in London, the site offers most all of the features one would expect to need to market and maintain a profile of one’s designs. The layout of the storefront is appealing, and the supply of product categories is quite large, giving the user an impression of substance. For a shopping network, content is certainly crucial.

As for what lives within the storefront, you can shop men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, plus things like watches, bags, and hats. If that weren’t enough, magazines, books, art, and pet clothing are part of the mix as well - just in case your canine wants to sport a sweater not of mainstream making.

Of course, there’s a good chance that you’re not alone in your appreciating for attire of various sorts. You’ve likely got your set of likeminded friends that you converse with quite regularly. If so, invite them to the network, it’s easy to do, and you can quickly build bridges with friends local and friends far off. And in the fashion world, the more connections the better, right?

There are also sections on Fashionspace reserved for fashion news and events. Though the news page doesn’t appear particularly interesting, the list of events can help users find festivals, shows, and sales without much trouble. All is presented in chronological order, and spans an international scene. (Much of what is displayed occurs in the UK, the region from which Fashionspace emerged, though a few US- and Germany-based events are noted.)

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: CreateDebate

20-word Description: CreateDebate is a social network for debating topics you’re passionate about. The community decides the best arguments through democratic voting.

CEO’s 100-word Pitch: CreateDebate is the answer to standard internet flame-wars and message boards that are an unreadable jumble of arguments. Our platform provides a structure that lets people easily see what the best arguments are, which side of a debate is winning, and incorporates a unique social networking feature set. People can create three kinds of debates and argue about any topic they are passionate about. The community is empowered to vote up well-conceived arguments and vote down flawed logic. Over time, the best arguments rise to the top of the debate, which distills out the central points and most relevant factors.

Mashable’s Take: Are you into Socratic discussion, in which virtually all views may be expressed regarding any number of issues, whether they be ethical, spiritual, political, technological, and so forth? If so, and you just happen to enjoy Web-based forums that offer democratic platforms on which to vote on and debate a broad range of topics, whether they be centered on breaking news or more general, more philosophical items, CreateDebate is a rather good destination to share your thoughts.

First launched in mid February and just moved to public beta this week, CreateDebate, is a place in which people can participate in topical dialogue on several levels. There are those who may utilize the platform as occasional entertainment to share the odd comment or two. And for others, the site can take the shape of a wide-reaching communication mechanism, where users can follow the activities of users of similar mind - or even the opposite, if challenges are what one is after. Call it a social network with a good dose of partisanship, where both friends and adversaries can gather and contend over questions of piracy, finance, athletics, acting - the list goes on and on.

In short, CreateDebate seems an interesting invention. It’s not too shallow, nor too deep. It sits in the middle of an area whose polarities either amount to sound bytes or long-form opinion. It has an atmosphere casual enough to offer mostly free reign on points of debate, while maintaining both variety and relevance. We think it a worthwhile place in which to spend one’s argumentative energies, one you may very well enjoy.

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