New Media News Every Morning
The buzz on the expo floor during weekend’s TIEcon in Santa Clara, California was about Elementeo. Specifically, the buzz was about the company CEO. You see, Anshul Samar is only 13 years old and his company injects fun into learning Chemistry. Oh, Chemistry… (put flashback video here…).
VentureBeat interviewed Anshul Samar which includes his elevator pitch in securing funding. It is without a doubt that this kid will be getting one.
Originally posted on May 21, 2007 @ 11:04 am
Rock You!, provider of widgets on the web, announced fresh funding from Partech International. Founded in 2006, RockYou! serves over 150 million widget views per day to over 200 countries.
Partech International led the series B round with existing investors, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Ventures for an undisclosed amount. The funding will enable Rock You! to continue its focus on developing and distributing the company’s suite of popular widgets for integration with many of the Web’s most trafficked social networking sites, blog networks and photo hosting websites.
“We are thrilled to complete our series B funding led by Partech International,†said Dr. Lance Tokuda, CEO and co-founder of RockYou!. “The additional funding will help further our efforts in creating easy to use, engaging and expressive widgets for our loyal user base, as well as provide our integration and content partners with the assurance of a secure and mutually beneficial relationship.â€
Originally posted on May 17, 2007 @ 6:00 am
Joost, the world’s first broadcast-quality Internet television service, announced that five selected parties have collectively invested approximately $45 million in the company. Each party invested in a minority percentage of the company. This funding will enable Joost to accelerate product development, global expansion, localization, and service offerings.
Joost is powered by a secure, efficient, Internet platform that enables premium interactive, advertising-supported, video experiences while providing copyright protection for content owners and creators. Joost can be accessed with a broadband Internet connection and offers content to viewers for free.
“This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in Joost’s platform,†said Janus Friis, co-founder of Joost. “We’ve carefully selected these investors from a variety of interested parties, as they are best-in-class in their respective arenas and bring unique assets to Joost that will enable us to significantly accelerate growth and development of the Company.â€
Index Ventures, a leading European venture capital firm, which invests in impactful technologies that have global reach, led the round with Sequoia Capital, the premier venture capital firm in the world. Sequoia Capital has been the first investor and business partner in companies that make up 10% of the NASDAQ’s value. In combination, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital bring unrivaled expertise and alliances in Europe, Asia and North America.
Originally posted on May 10, 2007 @ 7:45 am
Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of Intel Corporation, kicked off its eighth annual CEO Summit with the announcement of six investments totaling $31 million. The deals include: China-based 51.com (social networking) and Phoenix Microelectronics (microelectronics ); Aternity (application management software) and Ceedo (portable computing environment), both based in Israel; and from the United States, Jajah (Internet telephony solutions ) and Tutor.com (education network ).
This year’s CEO Summit is being attended by more than 400 executives from Intel Capital portfolio companies and global 2,000 companies. The event includes keynote presentations, expert panel discussions and more than 500 matchmaking meetings between portfolio company CEOs and industry executives as part of the focus on learning and deal-making.
“With global reach, larger investment stakes and active collaboration, Intel Capital is a leader in company building and becoming engaged with companies beyond our initial investment,” said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital. “By bringing together savvy business executives, global decision makers and our inspired entrepreneurs, the CEO Summit demonstrates our proactive strategy in helping our portfolio companies succeed. We look forward to welcoming CEOs, executives and entrepreneurs from around the world to this year’s event.”
Originally posted on May 11, 2007 @ 6:25 am
Frengo, a mobile social play network for people on the go, announced that it has closed $5.7 million in Series A financing. The Trilogy Partnership, founded by several pioneers in the mobile communications industry, led the round. This Series A financing follows a $2.3 million seed round closed in August 2006 which was led by Khosla Ventures and Index Ventures. Both firms participated in this round.
Turning an ordinary cell phone into a fun and effective mobile social networking platform, Frengo is the first mobile messaging service designed specifically for friends and communities, allowing them to easily interact in a one-to-many fashion. “Our focus is on enabling a large portfolio of content appealing to a broad audience and building on users’ desire to stay connected to each other and have fun on their phone,†said Mahi de Silva, CEO of Frengo.
Originally posted on May 7, 2007 @ 11:18 am