Christos Cotsakos-Led Social Networker MOLI Raises $29.6 Million
Mainstream Holdings, an internet holding company led by former ETrade CEO Christos Cotsakos has raised $29.6 million to build out its social net MOLI. The funding comes from a group of individuals including Home Depot founders Bernard Marcus and Kenneth G. Langone and Steven Holzman of Vantis Capital Management. MOLI is the core holding of Mainstream Holdings, which was previously funded with $20 million from Cotsakos and $6 million from outsiders, bring its total to $55.6 million. The core social networking service is pitched towards users that want to maintain multiple identities, depending who is looking. It also offers networking based around specific groups, along with a platforms for blogging and video. Mainstream Holdings’ other assets include CoVibe, which owns the underlying technology behind Moli, Tertiary Productions, which does original HD content and MOLI Kids. The company says it will be using the funding to enhance MOLI, which officially launches today. It feels like a lot of money for an un-proven site, although it may have ambitions to build out its other technologies and services as well, beyond this one site. Release.
Posted In: Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital, Social Media, bernard marcus, kenneth g. langone, mainstream holdings, moli, steven holzman
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Comments (1)
Jan 29, 2008 8:41 PM
Not only is it un-proven, it doesn’t work. I signed up because I love the multi-faceted model. Unfortunately, their “Control your privacy” promise failed as soon as the spam arrived within moments of registration.
After a less than flattering review of Moli on my blog in which I called them out on that issue, Moli has compounded matters by getting caught astroturfing in the comments.
After a suspicious “MOLI is awesome!” comment, a reverse lookup revealed that the comment originated from Moli’s own network, as detailed in this post:
http://tinyurl.com/248gsh
Moral of the story: $30m will not buy you brains. Or integrity.