Tag Archives: FunnyOrDie.com
HBO Invests In Funny or Die; Will Ferrell’s Company Now Valuated At $100 Million
About a year ago, AOL and HBO attempted to create a comedy site called This Just In, but it didn’t quite work out for them. Now Home Box Office, Inc. is investing in Will Ferrell’s FunnyOrDie.com.
Although the investment amount is unknown, HBO will get less than 10% in equity. Through the deal, Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX), parent company of HBO will have the rights to 10 half hour programs on the site and both companies will work on partnerships. FunnyOrDie will be doing live comedy tours and there will possibly be a FunnyOrDie programming slot on of HBO’s subsidiary channels.
This deal comes about a month after HBO announced that their programs will be available on iTunes. About�6 months ago, Funny or Die hired�former NASCAR VP and founder of ESPN.com, Dick Glover. Sequoia Capital and several other VCs invested $15 million in FunnyOrDie.com last year. FunnyOrDie’s�valuation is now $100 million according to Variety.
Information Source:
[1]paidContent: HBO Buying Small Stake in FunnyOrDie; Less Than 10 Percent by Rafat Ali
Categories FunnyOrDie.com, Home Box Office Inc.
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Dick Glover, Former Nascar VP Signs As Funny Or Die CEO
Funny or Die, the video web site that focuses around a slapstick genre has a new CEO. The new CEO is Dick Glover and he is the former Vice President of NASCAR. Glover helped market NASCAR to go Hollywood through the form of the movie, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay wrote Talladega Nights and also co-founded Funny or Die together.
Funny or Die is backed with over $15 million, mostly from Sequoia and has really been pumping out some funny videos lately. Some of the videos that I enjoyed recently on Funny or Die includes a that parodies Al Sharpton’s opposition of rap music videos starring Li’l Jon and a video that makes fun of Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy by using a toddler to play Spears.
Correction: The below paragraph can be scratched out (see comment). I just learned that Dick Glover did have an Internet background: he started ESPN.com in 1994. ESPN.com is ranked #44 on Alexa today.Â
Placing a CEO that has a limited Internet background could be risky, but at the same time has its pluses. During Terry Semel’s tenure as the CEO of Yahoo!, the company started making some value-added acquisitions such as Flickr and Del.icio.us, but passed on some potentially major acquisitions such as Google. Semel didn’t have an Internet background because he had just previously worked as the CEO of Warner Brothers for 24 years. However, lack of experience could catch up with you as displayed in the reasons why Semel started losing his flair as the CEO of Yahoo!, due to reasons such as Google’s sudden dominance in the search market.
Regardless, I see Funny or Die doing well. But the only way to keep it going is if they retain the talent that they have now. The company wouldn’t be where it is today without Ferrell or McKay.
Categories FunnyOrDie.com, NASCAR, Sequoia Capital
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Funny Or Die Raises $15 Million From Sequoia and Friends
Funny or Die, the slapstick video hub created by former Saturday Night Live cast member, Will Ferrell announced that they have raised $15 million from Sequoia and several other unnamed investors. Funny or Die is especially known for its viral video, The Landlord in which a baby abuses Will to pay the rent… or else.
Sequoia has backed Funny or Die since it started around April 2007. Gary Sanchez Productions and Adam McKay are also heavily involved with Funny or Die. Adam McKay also co-wrote Anchorman: The Legend of Run Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby with Will Ferrell. Adam McKay’s daughter, Pearl played the actual landlord on the Funny or Die video clip, The Landlord. McKay is married to Shira Piven, sister of Jeremy Piven (Ari Gold on HBO’s Entourage and Dean Pritchard in Old School).
Funny or Die plans to use the funds to hire engineering and creative talent. Currently there are 30 staff members working with Funny or Die and the company is developing a model to compensate users that submit viral content. It certainly is refreshing to see Hollywood embracing the entrepreneurial Web 2.0 spirit.
Information Source:
[1] Portfolio.com: Will Ferrell and the End of Media as We Know It
Categories FunnyOrDie.com, Sequoia Capital
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Recent Tech Funding: Adify, Funny or Die, 5min, and Yardbarker
Dollar Amount Involved: $3 Million Today / Expected $19 Million
Adify was founded in 2005 and has worked with large media companies such as Time, the Washington Post, NBC, and Comcast as clients to provide advertising supply.
Larry Braitman, the CEO/founder of Adify stated “We envision thousands of niche or vertically-focused ad networks emerging to meet specific market needs, driven by entrepreneurs and enterprises who are members of the specific communities they serve. These network builders are in the position to assemble publishers and deliver value to advertisers” at a recent Web 2.0 conference.
The first $3 million portion of a $19 million first round fund came from NBC Universal and GE Media Communications & Entertainment. Other investors in this round includes U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock Associates, and Time Warner.
Dollar Amount Involved: Undisclosed
Sequoia Capital has partnered with Gary Sanchez Productions for a new comedy video website that will feature clips with multiple hit actor, Will Ferrell. The producer of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Adam McKay is also heavily involved in the project. The project is called Funny or Die.
The website has already attained over 1.5 million page views as of today. The first video to appear on the website features Will Ferrell arguing with his landlord which happens to be an infant.Any user will be able to upload their own videos, but if they are given a low score by Funny or Die visitors, the video will be banished. Outstandingly comedic clips will be noticed by adminstrators of the website and may potentially score further movie deals according to Gary Sanchez Productions. The FunnyOrDie and Sequoia deal was brokered by Jimmy Miller and Deborah Klein.
Dollar Amount Involved: $300,000
5min is a website with video tutorials such as ‘how to catch a flying disc’ and ‘Sushi: How To Make Pickled Ginger.’ The founder of the company is Ran Harnevo, who is based in Israel. The $300,000 was in seed funding and the investors are unknown.
Dollar Amount Involved: Undisclosed
Yardbarker is like a Digg for sports news only. Users submit links and news articles with the best sports content from all over the Internet. Yardbarker, Inc. is based in Berkeley, CA and was founded in 2006. “Welcome to Sports 2.0″ states the About Yardbarker page.Russell Siegelman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins was the investor in this round of seed funding.Some of the other investors include Ron Conway, Steve Anderson (Baseline Ventures), Ronald “Ronnie” Lott (former USC/San Francisco 49ers football player), Harris Barton (HRJ Capital), Labrador Ventures, and the Band of Angels.
[Information Source: alarm:clock]