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Social Gamer Kabam Raises $30 Million For Acquistions, Studio Expansion

David Kaplan — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:24:54 +0000

Kabam, a developer of massive multiplayer games like Kingdoms of Camelot, has raised a $30 million third round of funding to support its acquisition goals. The Redwood City company also plans to use the proceeds to produce more titles and expand its studio, which has grown from 20 employees last year to 200 now.

On the acquisition front, Kabam says its looking to buy companies similar to Wonderhill, which is acquired in October. WonderHill says it stands apart from competitors like Zynga and Playdom because it develops more “wholesome” social and casual games like Green Spot, where players can save a rainforest, or the pet rescue product Dog World.

While those games certainly standout from titles like Zynga’s Mafia Wars, Kabam believes it can differentiate itself from its social game rivals by aiming more for serious players, as opposed to the usual Facebook player, who perhaps logs on briefly and without much regularity.

The $30 million Kabam has netted shows how serious investors are becoming about the the social gaming space. Major media companies like Disney (NYSE: DIS), which just shut down its console gaming studio Propaganda Games, has stated it will concentrate its resources on social gaming. Last fall, Viacom (NYSE: VIA) also said it put more of an emphasis on social gaming at MTV Networks following last month’s sale of Harmonix, makers of the disappointing Rock Band console gaming series.

A recent eMarketer forecast said social gaming revenues will surge from last year’s $856 million to over $1.3 billion by 2012. General usage of social media gaming is set to gain by 29 percent in 2012 to 68 million users who play at least one game a week.

In the meantime, Kabam has several titles ready for release this year, as it rides the rising wave of social gaming. The round was led by Redpoint Ventures and Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Capital with additional funding from original investor Canaan Partners, which incubated Kabam in its offices at the seed stage. Release

Blip.tv Raises $10.1 Million To Promote Indie Web Programs

David Kaplan — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:00:12 +0000

As it approaches its fifth anniversary, online video provider Blip.tv has closed a $10.1 million third round. The round was led by Canaan Partners and previous backer Bain Capital Ventures. The new funding comes after a year in which Blip.tv was able to strike key ad-targeting and distribution partnerships with YouTube, Vimeo, NBCU Local Media NY, and Roku.With this latest funding, Blip.tv has raised a total of $18.2 million.

In essence, Blip.tv offers a do-it-yourself platform for online video producers what like publishing tools like WordPress does for bloggers. Blip.tv’s dashboard every day gives online video producers traffic stats, help in connecting with interested communities, as part of its distribution offerings.

The third round proceeds will go towards adding more independent web shows — the New York-based company claims it serves more than 50,000 original online programs with 85 million video views per month — along with plans to build up its content services staff. Blip.tv also plans to hire more people to run international sales. Lastly, the money will go to developing new products aimed at both viewers and producers, but the company was vague on what sort of hardware it was working on.

Blip.tv is different from the other online video providers, such as Next New Networks, which is in striking distance of 1 billion views, and Veoh, which declared bankruptcy and was eventually sold to sharing startup Qlipso last month.

Where those sites have been more narrow in terms of the original programming they run on their networks, Blip.tv has served as a wide open distribution platform, while offering narrower curation and promotional tools for video producers that have shown an ability to generate a sizable and engaged audience.

In an interview with paidContent, Blip.tv CEO and co-founder Mike Hudack discussed how the company sifts through the thousands of videos it runs to find the ones that are deserving of more attention. “We started with the mission of creating the next generation television network,” Hudack said. A lot of video sites just wanted to create TV programs for the web, he said. Blip.tv’s approach is about helping distribute web programs and provide the tools to get them seen, similar to what a traditional TV network does, but without self-consciously applying the old model to the new one. “If one of our shows gets 3,000 hits, that might not be a lot, but if the completion rates are high, we can tell we have something that is grabbing people,” Hudack said. “At that point, our content team gets involved and tries to find more ways of getting these videos in front of more viewers.”

In terms of building up the mix of technology and people, Hudack said that Blip.tv has no acquisition plans at the moment. However, he added that if some interesting technology that could be aid its show producers comes a long, “we would take a look.”

Disclaimer: We use Blip.tv for all of our video coming out of our conferences.

Social Shopper OpenSky Nets $6 Million Second Round

David Kaplan — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:01:53 +0000

Social shopping sites like Groupon and LivingSocial keep attracting investment dollars as consumers continue to look for online deals during a weak economic recovery. Similarly, media companies are also looking to partner — or in some cases, buy — social shoppers as a way to supplement their ad revenue streams. The latest recipient of venture backing is OpenSky Project, which has raised a $6 million second round led by Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Partners.

With this investment, New York-based OpenSky has raised a total of $11 million since opening its doors since last year. OpenSky will use the proceeds to built out its platform. The company was founded by CEO John Caplan, the former CEO of Ford Models and an ex-president at About.com.

TweetPhoto Gets $2.6 Million For Its Own Funding Hole

Rafat Ali — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:52:05 +0000

Forget about all those clever headlines about “hole-filler” filling its own funding hole. With no discernible business model, and very tough to serve ads against random uploaded pics, these Twitter-based picture sites do deserve to sink down the hole. But don’t let that hold VCs back from funding them. TweetPhoto, the San Diego-based online photo sharing service aimed at Twitter users, has received $2.6 million in its first round of funding, led by Canaan Partners, with additional investment from Anthem Venture Partners and angel investors. The money will be used for “development of its core offering, a platform of open APIs and mobile SDKs.” Yep, nothing about revenue. That’s because it won’t have any, nevermind that it is looking to expand beyond Twitter to Facebook, Foursquare and LinkedIn. Only saving grace: that’s true for every other similar photo service like Twitpic, Yfrog and others. That, and oh, a hope to be acquired by Twitter, to fill its own holes. Details in release.

Video-Sharing Site Motionbox Gets $6 Million In Funding; Former VC Becomes CEO

Tameka Kee — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:07:16 +0000

Video-sharing service Motionbox has picked up $6 million in a third round of funding, though it comes with a change of guard. Current investor Constellation Ventures led the round; previous investors Canaan Partners and SAS Investors also participated. The NY-based company has raised $17.2 million since its launch in 2006, and launched both consumer-facing and white-label services for media companies. The site’s traffic jumped dramatically after *AOL* shuttered its AOL Uncut user-generated video service, and suggested that users transfer their files to Motionbox (via Compete).

Motionbox also promoted Josh Grotstein to CEO; he’d served as the company’s COO since mid 2008. As founding partner of SAS Investors, Grotstein was also one of the company’s initial investors. He succeeds founder Chris O’Brien, who will now serve as EVP, strategy and corporate development, and chairman. Release.

Microsoft Helps Back N-Trig’s $24M Funding For Touch-Sensing PCs

David Kaplan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:35:12 +0000

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has covered the chunk of Israeli tech company N-Trig’s $24 million funding, the WSJ reports. Other backers include Aurum Ventures, Challenger Ltd, Canaan Partners and Evergreen Venture Partners, Reuters was told. N-Trig, which also has offices in Austin, Texas, and Taipei, will work with Microsoft on creating multi-touch PCs and notebooks, as it hopes to use the touch-sense technology that has found success with *Apple* products like the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Blurb Raises $5 Million Third Round

Tameka Kee — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:09:56 +0000

Web-based self-publishing service Blurb has raised around $5 million in third-round funding, according to peHUB. Previous investors Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners participated in the round. Since its launch in 2004, the San Francisco-based company, which lets amateur authors create and publish their own books, has raised about $22 million in funding, including $2.5 million in venture debt from Hercules Technology Growth Capital. Rival service WEbook, which focuses on collaborative book publishing, raised $5 million in September.

Mobile Workforce Software Company Dexterra Raises $21.5 million In Funding

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:31:06 +0000

Dexterra, a Bothell, Wash.-based company which builds enterprise software for mobile workforces, said it has raised $21.5 million in funding. The lead investor was New Enterprise Associates, and existing investors Canaan Partners, Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Capital, Mesirow Financial, Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Ventures and Sigma Partners, also participated. The same investors invested $36 million in funding in Feb. 2007. This time the round will current operations and new opportunities. In July, the company’s founder and CEO Rob Loughan was replaced by Michael Liebow. Loughan is now chairman of the board. Scott Sandell, General Partner at New Enterprise Associates, said in the release: “Today’s challenging economic environment makes deciding which companies to invest in more difficult than ever….We are impressed by Dexterra’s revenue traction in both enterprise and carrier markets, strong suite of products targeted at growing markets and unwavering dedication to product excellence and customer success.” Release.

ESPN Leads $80 Million Investment In The Active Network; Will Pursue Acquisitions

Joseph Weisenthal — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:17:36 +0000

The Active Network, the big provider of sports-related technology, has just closed a huge, $80 million sixth round led by ESPN. Past backers participating in the round include Canaan Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Performance Equity Partners. The company, which has now raised $275 million since 1999, will use the funding towards infrastructure and towards “appropriate acquisitions.” Acquisitions are a key part of its strategy: Since 2007, it has acquired 11 companies, including Hy-Tek Sports Software, LaxPower, and Cool Running. Its flagship site is Active.com a sports training and registration portal. In addition to the online communities it runs, The Active Network provides marketing services and other technologies geared towards sports management. It’s also worth noting that it’s not just a sports company, as it offers services towards organizations like schools, campgrounds and governments.

There’s no word on how profitable the company is, though it says it had revenue of $107 million in 2007. For ESPN (NYSE: DIS) it’s the latest in a string of deals, including a number of acquisitions of smaller sports properties.

Rafat adds: The company filed for a $46 million IPO in 2004, but pulled it back due to what it called

ON24 Gets $8 Million For Webcasting And Virtual Trade Shows

Joseph Weisenthal — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:42:34 +0000

ON24, a provider of webcasting technology, has raised $8 million from U.S. Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, and Rho Ventures. The company has now raised over $46 million over an unspecified number of rounds. Previous raises were not announced. The company’s core technology revolves around webcasting for the enterprise, but it’s also recently gotten involved in virtual trade shows — think Second Life-like experiences, but specific to business interactions. Release.