Crenk » Funding

Pandora Radio Gets New Investment

Dean — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:48:54 +0000

Internet radio has taken off in the last few years. This is because more and more people are using smart-phones and using laptops on the go. Not to mention the fact that you can listen to your favourite radio station whilst holidaying in Australia or backpacking through Europe. Then, along came Internet based radio. This meant that there was no traditional radio station (ie. On a radio) for a particular company – it solely exists on the internet.

Pandora became one of the biggest streaming high quality music and advertisements across the web. Now, they have secured a massive investment from Greylock Partners of around $35 million dollars!

Currently, Pandora plays advertisements in order to make ends meet. Now, after securing this investment there is talk of charging listeners who tune in for over 40 hours every month 99c or an annual premium of $39 for unlimited listening and elimination of all the advertisements.

“New funds will be used toward the continued growth and development of Pandora” said Pandora.

It’s a good move to. Now that people are ditching podcasts more and more in search of radio – investing now would be wise. And when media players and internet speeds improve – internet TV would be no shock appearance.

The Rubicon Project and Collective Media Both Secure Funding

Steven Finch — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:41:56 +0000

It has been announced that online ad optimization firm, The Rubicon Project has raised another $13 million in venture capital. The amount is made up of an additional $5 million in venture funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and IDG Ventures Asia and Silicon Valley Bank added $8 million in venture debt. The company notes that the funds will be used to, “fuel business growth initiatives including strategic acquisitions, research and development, infrastructure and international expansion.”

The company has raised $33 million to-date and is based in Los Angeles. The company opened a NYC office last November. Check out our interview with founder and CEO Frank Addante.

While at the same time Techcrunch has reported that Collective Media has secured another $20 million in Series B funding. The series was led by Accel Partners and iNovia Capital. Collective Media offers publishers an ad network management platform to create their own branded, vertical ad networks. The company raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding, led by Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital, in October 2007.

This has made me think a lot about both companies and how IDG Ventures Asia was an investor in The Rubicon Project and the IDG Tech Network is currently using the Collective Media platform to run their advertising network. I find it funny at times how certain section of major still don’t have an overall growth strategy, because investing in one company but at the same time they are wasting money on using another ad platform when it might be in their best interests to think about building their own ad platform and then integrating The Rubicon Project.

Palm Pre Helps Palm Inc Raise More Funds

Steven Finch — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:00:11 +0000

Palm actually wants to get back into the smartphone race. Today the shares of Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) rose about 15%. The company increased the size of their secondary offering and raised $83.9 million as part of the process. The company sold 23.13 million shares as part of the secondary offering taking place between now and March 31.

Palm was initially expecting to sell 18.5 million shares being held by investor Elevation Partners. Palm added the extra 4.63 million shares at a price of $6 per share. Through the offering, Elevation Partners made about $49 million. Palm plans to use the capital raised to push the hype of the Pre in the smartphone market.

So far the Pre is looking great but is this one product really going to put Palm back on the map?

Spiral Frog (Ad-supported music service) In Trouble and Heading Towards Deadpool

Steven Finch — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:40:12 +0000

There is another music streaming service that we didn’t mention in our Top 10 free music streaming services and that is Spiral Frog. Spiral Frog is an ad-supported music download service which has had a huge amount of hype since launch.

Today it has been reported that Spiral Frog might be in a bit of trouble and heading towards the deadpool. These reports come from executives within the struggling company. Why is Spiral Frog in trouble? When launching Spiral Frog was in a growing advertising market in which was still yielding good CPM (cost per 1000 ads) rates, however now in the economic downturn these rates are quickly dropping. Therefore, companies need to keep increasing pageviews and presence to stay ahead of the curve. Spiral Frog has been losing a lot of traffic of late and this combined with the big licensing fees they had to pay upfront for major label catalogues means their in a lot of trouble.

There are only a couple of options that will save Spiral Frog. Firstly, a miracle could happen and they could turn around the traffic and the revenues, but that’s not going to happen. Secondly, they could get more funding and sell part of the shares, but they are running out of shares so I don’t think this would happen either. Finally, the only real option is for someone to step in and purchase the company just before they run out of money and get a bargain basement price.

To be fair in the past Spiral Frog has had a lot of issues and they have been in trouble a couple of times. This is probably what has lead to Spiral Frog getting a lot of media attention. I think Spiral Frog will be acquired by the end of 2009, its the only decent option of the company.

Where Can I Find Tech Company and Product Info? Crunchbase or Tradevibes!

Steven Finch — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:17:53 +0000

Where do you head to find technology company information? Currently, there are a lot of technology blogs that provide company directories, but I think there are two key players that stand out in this sector and I’m sure their pageviews will sore in the coming months and years. Those two players have to be Crunchbase and Tradevibes.

Crunchbase is the company directory from the superblog Techcrunch. Crunchbase is build on a wiki type system and instead of just writing about companies and collect data, Michael Arrington thought it would be a good idea to actually put it all together and make some more money from it. Crunchbase has a great look about it and it brings together information from some of the most well-known companies. On Crunchbase you can find descriptions of the company, funding information, location and telephone numbers, competitors and staffing information. I would like Crunchbase to find new ways to make money apart from advertising, like a highlighted company feature.

Tradevibes has a bit of a different layout, but essentially it is the same concept with the type of wiki development. Tradevibes provide a similar set of information as Crunchbase but it also has additional features, such as a fantasy exchange game, voting system on companies, and forums. The design on Tradevibes is actually a bit cluttered and there seems to be a lot of products that have simply just been put together to add features, instead of developing something in house that matches the site. For example, the job board in the left column from SimplyHired.

Both of these companies are leading the way in this niche, however there still seems to be a lot of issues in terms of design and integrating information that is actually needed, without information overload. It would also be nice to see integration with several technology blogs to provide news about each of the companies in the database, but so far even this seems to be limited.

TechCrunch50 Showcases Startups

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:39:45 +0000

TechCrunch has been a well known site for everything tech and media related. With millions of readers and followers, TechCrunch has done an amazing job in helping young fledgling startups get noticed. What began as TechCrunch 20, then 40, and now 50, it looks to once again be the opportunity that every startup is waiting for.

In just under a week the San Francisco Design Center Concourse will be transformed into a showcase floor for entrepreneurs, new technology, and VC’s looking for the “next big thing.” The DemoPit, where all the magic happens. Paired with this display are panels of speakers who will share their thoughts and expertise with the attendees, expected to be over 900 this year alone.

The event gives the startups an opportunity to share, explain, and possibly have their ideas funded. Companies have a high chance of being launched at this event, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thanks to all the sponsors who help support and foster an event where these startups can find growth and a possible future!

Keep track of this event, and check back here for some of the highlights of the event.

Is Spottt Actually Going Anywhere Or Is It Just Me?

Steven Finch — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:42:14 +0000

Back in early November of last year, I preempted the launch of Spottt. Spottt is a free link exchange between sites via a 125 x 125 widget. Spottt is developed by the guys over at Adbrite, so they have a product that needs to work and actually launch into something worthwhile. Since Adbrite has had a lot of VC Funding, they will be really expected to not just launch a product for the sake of it, and actually turn it into a commercial entity.

This brings me to the all important point, is Spottt actually going anywhere? Currently, the site is so simplistic and has a lot of competitors doing exactly the same thing. So where is it unique selling point? If I was the VC in Adbrite who put in a slice of the money, then I would expect an out strategy for Spottt and within a year or two at the most. Will this actually happen? and what features are really missing from Spottt or sites like Spottt?

What Is The Point Of TheFunded.com?

Steven Finch — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:07:26 +0000

In the last 6 to 12 months i have heard a lot of talk about the website, TheFunded.Â I have seen the site all over the blogosphere and on the BBC, but i really dont understand why.

The site lets entrepreneurs rate and comment about venture capitalists, has drawn a lot of attention from folks eager to learn salacious gossip about bad VCs. It has been reported by Venturebeat that TheFunded has been removing posted comments about VCs for more favourable ones.

This all being said after looking through TheFunded more indepth, it really doesnt seem to be a great deal of people actually using the site. It seems to have 6,000 or so members and crap all is actually happening in terms of activity. The site to me seems like an interesting place to go and read up on your possible VCs, however im sure if someone was going to take 10% of my company i would do a lot more research than just looking at this site. If that is the case what is the point of the site when it tells you all basic information about the VCs that can be found in other places and then gives you a rating of the VCs for only a very very limited amount of users who actually use the site?

Adconion Get Largest Ever European Online Media Venture Funding

Steven Finch — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:43:25 +0000

It has been reported over at 901am that Adconion, an online advertising network, has secured the largest financial funding of an online media venture in European history. The investment of $80 million was led by Index Ventures, who were joined by existing investor Wellington Partners, and represents the first investment made from Indexâ€™s recently announced growth fund. Index partnersâ€™ Dominique Vidal, former CEO of Yahoo! Europe, and Giuseppe Zocco, the firmâ€™s co-founder, will join Adconionâ€™s board of directors.

Glam Media Raise $85 Million in Financing

Steven Finch — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:03:30 +0000

It has been reported by the WSJ and Techcrunch that Glam Media has just taken $85 million in financing. To-date Glam has raised over $115 million over four rounds. Investors included Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Accel, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Information Capital. The valuation, as expected, was in the half billion dollar range.

Glam Media are still yet to get into the profit range, in 2007 they lost around $3.7 million on $21 million in revenues and project for 2008 will be their first year in profit, $40 million profit on $150 million revenues. This seems to be to be quite a large jump for Glam and im not too sure if these figures for 2008 are too pessimistic.

Mixx Takes $2 Million In Series B Funding

Steven Finch — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:03:17 +0000

Mixx has just announced that they have taken $2 million in Series B funding from InterSouth Partners. Mixx is a user generated content system, similar to Digg, Reddit and Propeller. Total funding to date is $3.5 million, in which they have high profile investors on board, such as the LA Times.

Kindo Secures Additional Seed Funding from ASI

Steven Finch — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:30:47 +0000

London-based family tree social network Kindo today announced a round of funding from Ambient Sound Investments (ASI). The Estonian investment company joins seed investors Saul and Robin Klein of The Accelerator Group (TAG), and Stafan Glanzer, the initial investor of Last.fm.

Users can build their own free family tree, invite whoever is a part of it, and stay in touch with their loved ones. Unlike a lot of English-only social networks these days, Kindo has a particular focus on the international landscape. The site currently supports 14 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The investment round was led by Eileen Broch, who stated in the press release, “In the short time since they’ve been live, Kindo has proven that they know how to build a product that can be embraced by young and old alike. It is already loved by families around the world, which is what appealed to us the most.“

Funding For Box.net and Automattic

Steven Finch — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:23:36 +0000

Box.net has raised $6 million in a Series B financing led by venture capital firm U.S. Venture Partners, and includes Box.net Series A investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The capital will be used to continue company expansion, including the development and marketing of new services and products.

The New York Times reports that Automattic, the commercial arm of the popular WordPress publishing platform for blogs, has received $29.5 million in financing from four companies, including a small portion from The New York Times Company. Many other have reported on this round of funding, so take a look at what has been said at GigaOM, RWW and Techcrunch.

Google Acquires Jaiku

Steven Finch — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:36:57 +0000

The news of the day must be that Google has acquired Jaiku. Jaiku is a microblogging site similar to Pownce and Twitter. It is a bit of a surprise that Google has opted to purchase Jaiku (which hails from Finland) instead of Twitter (the market leader) or Pownce (the new kid on the block with the best user interface).

Have a look at what everyone else has been saying about the deal:

Twitter has not long got Series A Funding, so it would have been rare for them to be purchased. Pownce on the other hand seems to be on the downhill slide. Since their highly publicised launch Pownce has never lived up to expectations and with the recent news about Kevin Rose potentially moving Pownce features over to Digg, it has just never recovered. If you look at Alexa data on Pownce you will notice it wont be too long until it dies a death, on the quick slide down. Its seems that Jaiku was an important match with Google because it has more of a presence in activity streams and mobile presence and those are the markets Google is trying to gain more market share. It that last week Google also launched Adsense for mobile, so this will be a nice addition to boost the start of that new service.

The Rubicon Project : How Can I Get My Invite

Steven Finch — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:39:50 +0000

I was read ShoeMoney yesterday and he reviewed a new advertising product that I had to mention on here.

Welcome to the Rubicon Project. The Rubicon Project is a new product that has already received $6 million in funding and is based around the very competitive market of online advertising. About a year ago I had an idea of starting an advertising network based around an open marketplace, since then this has been done several times over and it seems when someone comes up with a new idea it is only a month or so before there are 10 of them in the market.

The Rubicon Project however is a unique advertising model that actually has ties with over 300 ad networks, including the big boys like Google, Yahoo and ValueClick.

The Rubicon Project ensures your website is making as much money as possible by optimizing it for not only the highest paying advertising company but also for demographic/geographical data.

Now unlike a few selected people I am still waiting for my Invite to their private beta. However in the mean time make sure you head over to the Rubicon Project and have a look at their 3 min. video.

Funding Corner

Steven Finch — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:19:14 +0000

So far in the last week there seems to be a lot of companies receiving funding and here are a few:

Revolution Money - Raised $50 million. Investment comes from Citi, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank.
Demand Media – Raised $100 million. Founded by the former CEO of Intermix Media, Richard Rosenblatt, Demand Media is in the business of buying domain names with organic traffic and adding social networking features to them. They also own domain registrars eNom and BulkRegister. Funding from Goldman Sachs, 3i Group, Generation Partners, Oak Investment Partners and Spectrum Equity Investors.
Project Playlist – Raised $3 million. Investment was from undisclosed partners.
Huffington Post – Raised $5 million. Investors included Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners,Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and CEO and co-founder Ken Lerer.

GameJump Hits 14 Million Downloads Of Free Mobile Games

Steven Finch — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:40:10 +0000

Gamejump.com has reached 14 million downloads in just over 12 months. Gamejump’s model is based around providing mobile gaming content which is ad supported rather than the normal paid downloads. GreyStripe who ownes GameJump took $8.9 million in Series B funding in May.

Gamejump.com features 800 games by 70 publishers and includes a variety of genres to appeal to different users. Gamejump has seen users download an average of 3.4 games each and the number of females users downloading games has been fairly close to the number of male users.

The gaming market place has seen a interest rise in the past few months with the purchase of Club Penguin by Disney for $700 million.