Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Globespan Capital Partners

Internet TV Streaming Device Company Roku Raises $8 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:59:16 +0000

Roku is an Internet TV streaming device company that has raised $8 million in funding according to a form D filed with the SEC earlier this week. The lead investor in this round is Globespan Capital Partners and Menlo Ventures. Google VP of TV and film entertainment Robert Kyncl also participated in this round.

Roku spun off of Netflix three years ago and recently launched the Roku 2 XS player product. The Roku 2 XS has games and motion controllers. The Roku 2 XS currently retails for about $100. Roku chief executive Anthony Wood is best known for inventing digital video recorder (DVR) technology.

[VentureBeat]

AOL Acquires 5Min Media

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:46:55 +0000

AOL, Inc. (NYSE:AOL) has acquired 5min Media, a video tutorial website that teaches people how to do different tasks. Although AOL did not confirm the value of the acquisition, sources believe that it was an all-cash deal worth $50-$65 million.

Globespan Capital Partners and Spark Capital both invested a total of $13 million into 5min. Not a bad return for the two VC firms. Below is the full press release from AOL:

AOL ACQUIRES 5MIN MEDIA, WEB’S LARGEST VIDEO CONTENT SYNDICATION PLATFORM

Combination of 5min Media and AOL’s Video Capabilities Creates Powerful
End-to-End Offering

New York, NY, September 28, 2010 – AOL Inc. [NYSE: AOL] today announced it has acquired 5min Media, the Web’s largest video syndication platform.* The acquisition allows AOL to significantly expand its consumer offering of contextually relevant, high-quality video across its sites, increasing the AOL Network’s appeal to advertisers and is expected to further enhance the distribution and monetization of AOL-produced original video content throughout the Web.** Deal terms were not disclosed.

“Our acquisition of 5min Media is the latest in a number of steps we have taken this year to better position AOL to capture the growing video opportunity on the Web,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL. “AOL is building a video ecosystem for the next decade. 5min Media is the perfect complement to our powerful video capabilities — it provides a missing piece in the AOL value chain that completes our end-to-end video offering from content creation through syndication and distribution to the consumer experience and monetization.”

“AOL and 5min Media share the same excitement about the direction our industry is taking, and our complementary video capabilities make us a compelling fit and an attractive combination for content creators and publishers,” said Ran Harnevo, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, 5min Media. “We’ve seen rapid and successful growth as an independent organization and becoming part of AOL is a natural next step. We’re confident that AOL’s organizational horsepower, combined with the vast library, audience and syndication capabilities 5min Media offers, present compelling opportunities for AOL as well as the content creators we work with and the publishers we serve.”

Leading Video Syndication Network and Library to Enhance AOL’s Properties

5min Media is the world’s leading video syndication network with a library of more than 200,000 categorized, tagged and rated videos from more than 1,000 of the world’s largest media companies and professional independent video producers. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City with offices in Tel Aviv, 5min Media has been named the largest U.S. independent video property by comScore, with more than 20 million unique viewers and more than 130 million video streams (including ad and content videos) in the U.S. in August 2010. 5min Media’s growing network of 800 partner sites allows content creators to reach this audience of targeted viewers across 21 different verticals, including six verticals – Home, Food, Beauty / Fashion, Health, Travel and Pets – that lead their categories, according to comScore Video Metrix, August 2010. VideoSeed, 5min Media’s proprietary semantic technology, contextually matches the most relevant videos with a partner site’s text content to enhance the consumer experience and increase monetization rates.

AOL has already begun to integrate 5min Media’s video content on its sites through a commercial agreement executed prior to the acquisition. “With 5min Media we’ll be able to add more video inventory to our pages. Importantly, we’ll also be able to identify video content holes among our sites, tap our StudioNow capabilities to fill those needs and create a truly ‘demand informed’ video library,” Armstrong said.

Combination Completes Next Step in AOL’s Value Chain

With the addition of 5min Media, AOL will significantly increase its consumer offering in video programming and connect consumers with high-quality video. In January, AOL acquired StudioNow, the premier online platform for quality video content creation and distribution. With StudioNow, AOL has formed a fully functional platform to produce high-quality video content in a rapid, cost-effective and scalable way for both AOL as well as third-party publishers. In addition, AOL is forging exciting new partnerships to provide relevant content to specific audiences, including partnering with: The Ellen DeGeneres Show; Marlo Thomas; The Jonas Group and MGX Lab to found Cambio (www.cambio.com); and A Squared Entertainment LLC to create children’s content featuring Warren Buffett, Gisele Bündchen, Martha Stewart and the late Carl Sagan.

[AllThingsD]

Zynga Acquires Challenge Games

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:27:26 +0000

Social network gaming company Zynga has acquired Austin, TX based company Challenge Games. The financial transaction rumored to be behind the deal is $20.5 million in stock. Challenge Games is being renamed to Zynga Austin. Challenge Games raised funding in the past from Sequoia Capital and Globespan Capital Partners. [TechCrunch]

Jajah Getting Acquired For $200 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:32:49 +0000

VoIP startup Jajah has been acquired for $200 million by O2. Microsoft and Cisco were reportedly both involved in the bidding process. Jajah made its one billionth call back in June. Jajah has about 15 million users, many of whom make calls from Yahoo! Messenger. Jajah also has a deal with Microsoft. Jajah raised a total of $30 million in funding over four VC rounds. Sequoia, Intel, Globespan, and T-Venture were all involved in Jajah’s funding.

Video Storage and Infrastructure Company Blackwave Raises $7 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:07:54 +0000

Blackwave is an Acton, Mass. based company that hosts and streams videos on the Internet. The company has recently raised $7 million in Series C from Globespan Capital Partners, Sigma Partners, and Flybridge Capital Partners. Thus far Blackwave has raised a total of $29 million in total funding.

“This renewed investment, combined with the ongoing acquisition of a range of new customers and partners, signals the market’s great confidence in our technology and our value proposition,” stated Blackwave CEO Bob Rizika.

5min Raises $7.5 Million Second Round Of Funding From Globespan Capital and Spark Capital

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:37:09 +0000

5min is a website that features do-it-yourself videos that revolve around categories ranging from arts to pet care to health to video games. 5min has raised a $7.5 million second round of funding from Globespan Capital Partners and Spark Capital. Globespan led the round.

5min receives about 200 million views per month and has a library of over 100,000 short videos. 5min also syndicates content to wikiHow, Wikia, and hundreds of other websites driving pageviews to their website.

This round of funding will be used to further developer 5min’s VideoSeed syndication platform. This allows websites to scrape video content from their website, but with advertising built in.

5min raised $5 million in their first round of funding from Spark around November 2007. Seven months before that, 5min raised $300,000 from angel investors.

[via VentureBeat]

Accel, Sequoia, and Globespan Give Amobee Round 2 Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:15:46 +0000

Amobee Media Systems is a San Francisco, CA based company that is developing a new form of mobile advertising and has recently gained an unlisted amount of funding from Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Globespan Capital Partners.

Amobee “has built and designed the first and only telco-grade ad-serving solution 100% dedicated to mobile operators, allowing them to ad-fund all non-voice related applications and services: WAP Browsing, Video & Music, SMS, MMS, and Games.” Amobee allows users to decide if they want to view non-voice advertising content or to pay for avoiding advertisements. Advertisements would be relevant to the content being viewed.

In a previous investment, Amobee raised $5 million from Sequoia and Accel. Amobee has offices in London, San Francisco, and has a research and development arm in Herzliya, Israel.