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Zynga Expected To Raise Between $850 Million and $1.15 Billion In IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:40:23 +0000

Zynga has filed documents with the SEC this morning which indicates that they are planning on raising between $850 million and $1.15 billion in their public offering. This is about $15 million more than their previous estimates.

Zynga is seeking to sell about 100 million shares at between $8.50 and $10 per share. They are reservhing 15 million additional shares for extra demand. Zynga is expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol “ZNGA.”

Zynga will be valued at about $7 billion based on 699.3 million shares understanding. This would put Zynga’s valuation at close to Electronic Arts, which is hovering at about $7.65-$7.8 billion. Zynga makes money from selling virtual goods on social games such as FarmVille, CityVille, and Words With Friends. Zynga has about 230 million monthly active users and they have a close-knit relationship with Facebook. Some financial analysts believe that Zynga is rushing their IPO before tech stocks take a major plunge.

Zynga was founded in 2007 in San Francisco by Mark Pincus. Pincus named the company after his dog Zinga. Zynga recorded a profit of $27.9 million on revenues of $597.5 million in 2010. In the first 9 months of 2011, Zynga hit revenues of $828.9 million. Even though Zynga’s revenues are growing, their number of daily active users has fallen two quarters in a row. Zynga currently has 2,500 employees.

The proceeds from the IPO will go towards working capital. About $83.6 million will be spent to satisfy tax withholding obligations that is related to stock of current and former employees. They also plan to use a portion of the proceeds for charitable causes through Zynga.org. In the sale, Zynga will have three classes of shares: Class A, Class B, and Class C. Pincus owns Class B shares and all of the company’s Class C shares. After the IPO, Pincus will control 36.2% of the company voting power. Pincus will not be selling any of his shares in the IPO. No other executives plan on selling stock either.

Some of Zynga’s venture capital investors will be selling their stock, including Institutional Venture Partners, Union Square, Foundry, and Avalon. Google will be selling 1.7 million shares. Kleiner Perkins will not be selling any of their stock.

[AllThingsD]

Cheezburger Blog Network Raises $30 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:29:30 +0000

The Cheezburger network of websites include FAIL Blog and LOLcats. The company has raised $30 million in funding led by the Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, and SoftBank Capital. Brad Feld (Foundry), Greg Gottesman (Madrona), and Rich Levandov (Avalon) will be joining the board of directors at Cheezburger. I Can Has Cheezburger now has a total of $32.5 million.

Ben Huh founded Cheezburger in 2007. Now there are about 50 websites in the Cheezburger network of websites and they has a user base of about 16.5 million people that have uploaded 500,000 pictures and videos. Between all of their pictures and videos, the Cheezburger network sees about 375 million pageviews and 110 million videos per month.

Huh plans on increasing their staff size from the existing number of 50 people. The company is also planning on expanding internationally.

Simulmedia Raises $8M From Time Warner

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:31:53 +0000

Simulmedia has raised $8 million from Time Warner Investments. Other investors include Avalon Ventures and Union Square Ventures. Simulmedia has raised a total of $12 million.

Simulmedia helps TV companies improve their ratings by increasing the effectiveness of their TV promotions. Simulmedia started in 2009 and promises a 50-350% increase of viewers per program. Simulmedia will be using the new round of funding to continue to develop the company’s technology platform. Simulmedia was started by Dave Morgan. Morgan also created ad network company Tacoda, which was acquired by AOL in 2007.

[TechCrunch]

Zynga Raises $29 Million To Keep Making Facebook Games

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:55:22 +0000

Zynga is a social network game-making machine. The company has just raised $29 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Institutional Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures, Avalon Ventures, and Foundry Group. Union, Avalon, and Foundry were all previous investors. Zynga is based out of San Francisco, Calif.

Zynga was started by Mark Pincus. Through this round of funding, Kleiner Perkins partner and former chief creative officer of Electronic Arts Bing Gordon will join Zynga’s board of directors. Zynga’s last round of funding was $10 million in January 2008. Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel of the PayPal mafia were a couple of investors involved in the last round of funding.

Zynga currently has about 18 million uniques per month. Zynga’s revenue model is advertising and selling game add-ons. Zynga’s top games on Facebook are Poker, Blackjack, Scramble, Word Twist, PathWords, Sudoku, Sea Wars, Mafia Wars, Dragon Wars, Triumph, Attack!, My Heroes Ability, Ghost Racer, Dope Wars, and YoVille. Zynga recently acquired YoVille.

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