Fundings received by latest Web 2.0 ventures :

Connectbeam $3.5 Million from Gabriel Venture Partners Source

 

Sermo Gets More Funding - $9 Million

January 11, 2007

Sermo LogoOne of the companies I mentioned in my Best of 2007 Predictions is off to a great start. Sermo.com, an exclusive online community for physicians has raised a second round of funding of $9 Million according to employees within the company. This comes shortly after a previous round of $3 million in November 2006. For more details, see my original post about Sermo and general strategies for super niche social networks.

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LinkedIN Wants $13 Million More. Why?

December 21, 2006 at 2:26 pm · Filed under General, Venture Capital

Early this morning I received an email with a this link to an article claiming that LinkedIN is in negotiations to raise another $13 million in venture capital. This struck me as kind of odd. LinkedIN claims it has been profitable since March of this year which means they aren’t burning a ton of cash. It seems likely that before they turned profitable they would still have had money left from their previous venture rounds. In addition, it is unusual for a company to be publicly talking about this before the deal is done. So why would LinkedIN want to raise another $13 Million? I think there are two possible reasons:

1. LinkedIN is just trying to publicly display their valuation for a possible acquisition.

2. LinkedIN has plans to go balls to the wall in 2007.

 

 

What Does Friendster Have Up Its Sleeve? Receives Another $10 Million

August 21, 2006 at 5:29 pm · Filed under Friendster, Venture Capital

After receiving $3.1 million in funding only a few months ago, social networking veteran, Friendster, has received another $10 million from Palo Alto-based DAG Ventures. This comes at a time when the market is being flooded with new social networks and Myspace, Facebook, and Bebo seem to be dominating. Yes, Friendster has around 30 million users which is not too shabby, but how many of those users are active on a weekly basis?

The only new development Friendster has announced with the new round of funding is the fact that they will be targeting 20 - 30 year olds. This is obviously a smart move considering most of their existing users are in that age range, and the teen market is oogly eyed over Myspace. So the big question is what in the world is Friendster going to do with $10 million? Or the more important question to myspace, bebo, tribe, linkedin, facebook, and the rest of the social networking world, is Friendster planning on enforcing their newly awarded social networking patent?

Friendster has proven in the past that they can’t keep up with the rapidly changing social networking scene, so why would they be able to now? In addition, the 20 - 30 year old market has much better solutions such as the rapidly growing Multiply.com. While I would hate to see it happen, I personally believe that Friendster’s most viable option is to enforce their patent on the major social networks. It is the easiest and probably safest way to big bucks. While winning in court isn’t guaranteed, it is certainly less risky then trying to develop a new feature set in hopes of regaining the ground that they have lost.

 

aSmallWord Obtains Multi-Million Dollar Investment


It is a good day to be a social networking site. The second SN site of the day, aSmallWorld.com, has announced a multi-million dollar funding deal. aSmallWorld.com is a very exclusive social network. One can only join if they are invited by a member with a certain amount of network connections.

Although they only have 130,000 members, aSmallWorld generates revenue through advertising. I imagine they are able to charge a decent premium considering their audience. According to Techcrunch, some famous members include Naomi Campbell, Paris Hilton and James Blunt. Obtaining this type of crowd must have taken some decent connections in order to seed the site.

 

Bebo Raises $15 Million

May 22, 2006 at 6:32 am · Filed under Facebook, MySpace, General, Venture Capital

Hold on to your hats people. The Social Networking space is heating up even more with the recent announcement that Bebo has raised $15 Million in venture capital. This money should help their growth strategy in non - US markets. Bebo has over 20 million members and has a much higher growth rate in the UK then Myspace. This goes to show that there is still room in the Social Networking scene even with Myspace and Facebook.

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