With 30 million users and advertising on the rise, social media messaging developer Meebo Inc. said Thursday it has landed $25 million in a Series C round of venture capital, bringing total investment in the three-year-old startup to $38 million.
Jafco Ventures of Palo Alto, Calif., led the round and Time Warner Investments of New York and KTB Ventures of Palo Alto joined as new investors, along with previous investors Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The deal will support additional technology development and distribution as the company adds partnerships with social media networking sites and entertainment brands and refines its advertising platform.
Meebo founder and CEO Seth Sternberg said that since its $9.5 million Series B round in January 2007, the company has focused on building its user base and partnering with properties including CBS, Showtime and MTV Networks, to syndicate its instant messaging service within their sites. At the time of the previous funding, Sternberg said that unlike many other emerging media startups, Meebo was willing to put off generating revenue in favor of building an audience. However, he said the company is ready to begin to monetize its viewership.
"On the revenue model side we have recently put out a few advertising test units with music labels, to find out what users want," Sternberg said. "Our goal has been to find advertisements that users want to click on while they talk, and we found that banner ads were not appropriate for social media."
-- Clifford CarlsenFor more see
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