What is the Swiss Post Box? Now being introduced in Switzerland, the Swiss Post Box system is a new way to deliver mail online, instead of having the postman stop by and put your mail in your mailbox.

How does this new email postal service work? First, I should mention that the program was designed by Earth Class Mail, based in Seattle. Earth Class Mail has tens of thousands individual subscribers and charges $10.00 to $60.00 a month for the service. The service is used widely in Britain, the United States, Canada and Mexico. Now the Swiss postal service has started redirecting mail from the letter box to your online inbox. The Swiss service starts at 19.90 Swiss francs.

Here are some specific tools which are provided:

• Allows subscribers ot receive scans of their unopened envelopes via email and decide which ones to open and scan the entire contents.
• You can ask to have the contents archived and send unopened letters to another address or have them shredded and recycled.

Wednesday, when I checked my mail box, I had to throw most of the stuff away. Essentially, the task is really about weeding out lots of junk mail.

Well, Earth Class Mail thinks it has a better way. In fact, the company raised $13.3 million this week from investors including Ignition Partners and the Keiretsu Forum.

Basically, the service allows for online delivery of regular postal mail – for consumers and businesses. Yes, it's a cool "clicks and bricks" business model, and I think it could see lots of traction (I would like to use the service, actually).

Earth Class Mail has assembled an impressive team, with operators from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX). Although, I think that Kenn Dahl, who is a board member, will be key. After all, he is the president of Prime Recognition, which develops sophisticated optical character recognition software.

Interestingly enough, there is also a cleantech angle. That is, Earth Class Mail will recycle your mail.

And, based on the mail I get, I think I could save a few trees.

Finally, if you want to check out other interesting venture capital deals, check out DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

I am a web Bedouin -- not the desert dwelling nomadic tribe -- but the new term for an online worker without a fixed office. At various times during the work day (which can be almost any time), I might be found in the local coffee shop, the city park, the library, or my screened-in porch.

The working world is becoming quite a friendly place for us Bedouins. With Wi-Fi, cellular technology, instant messaging and internet-based project management, I am as much in my office while at the pool as at home.

Two new services are making the Bedouin's work life even easier. One, GrandCentral, I wrote about earlier, before it was bought by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). GrandCentral gives me one phone number to distribute to my working contacts. I can route a call placed to this number to any other phone of my choosing, as well as record any conversation on it.