Tag Archives: RockYou
RockYou UK Based Social Gaming Company Acquires Playdemic
Social game development company RockYou has acquired Playdemic, a British social gaming company. Playdemic is best known for their game Gourmet Ranch, which has over half a million users on Facebook. Playdemic’s 16 employees will be joining the RockYou team, but will maintain their operations in Manchester, U.K.
Categories Playdemic, RockYou
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RockYou Raises $10 Million For Asia Expansion
Social network application development company RockYou has raised $10 million in additional funding from SoftBank to expand their Asian operations: RockYou Asia. RockYou has raised a total of $127 million. Some of RockYou’s popular applications include Crime World, Hug Me, Speed Racing, RockYou Battle Monsters, and Usaru Biyori. RockYou has about 280 million monthly users. [TechCrunch]
Categories RockYou, SoftBank Capital
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RockYou Being Sued For Hack Attack
At least one hacker has penetrated the user e-mails and passwords on RockYou.com. E-mails and passwords were stored in plain text and was vulnerable because of aSQL security holes. This happened even after a security firm warned RockYou about their vulnerabilities. A class action lawsuit was filed against RockYou on December 28 at the U.S. District Court in Northern California.
Alan Claridge, a RockYou member, accused RockYou for not securing data. The civil lawsuit claims unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices, and violation of consumer protection legislation. RockYou raised a total of $119 million from Sequoia Capital, Partech International, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM, and Softbank.
Categories Alan Claridge, RockYou
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RockYou Raises $50 Million Series D
RockYou is a company that designs widgets and applications for social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. It is considered one of the most successful companies based on installations. The company has raised $50 million in Series D from Softbank recently.
The company launched in November 2005 and raised $119 million in total capital. The company has revenues of about $30 to $40 million per year. RockYou has about 10 million registered users and 150 million widget views per day. The company was founded by Lance Tokuda and Jia Shen.
Previous investors in the company include First Round Capital, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International, SK Telecom Ventures, and Doll Capital Management. RockYou makes revenues from virtual goods and advertising along with in-game offers.
Categories Jia Shen, Lance Tokuda, RockYou, SoftBank Capital
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RockYou Secures $17 Million in Funding
RockYou has raised $17 million from Softbank Group and Menlo Park-based SK Telecom Ventures. This brings the company’s total funding to $67 million.
The primary use of the funding is for the company to expand into foreign markets including China.
Since the Facebook platform is practically dead, RockYou and other widget makers have to find new ways to reach an audience. Therefore, focusing on foreign markets is a good business move.
Categories RockYou
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We Will, We Will RockYou! $35 Million Series C Round of Funding
RockYou announced today that they have raised $35 million Series C in funding. The firms that invested in RockYou includes DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International, and Sequoia. RockYou! created some of the more viral applications on Facebook including Vampires, Superwall, and Likeness. RockYou! also created marketing campaigns for Microsoft, CBS, Sony, New Line, and Paramount.Â
“DCM believes that RockYou will be the catalyst of this new global ecosystem that delivers next-generation advertisements through its innovative advertising network and social applications,” stated co-founder of DCM, David Chao. “With the current momentum, RockYou is positioned to become a top-10 Internet property in the world in the near future.”
RockYou! will use the funding to grow their team and to create more applications. RockYou! receives roughly 87.5 million unique monthly visitors and 2.7 billion page views. RockYou! uses Google OpenSocial to spread their applications across Hi5, MySpace, and Orkut.Â
“RockYou is incredibly proud to announce our funding, and are very pleased to be able to work with DCM and be a part of their impressive portfolio. RockYou is entering into a very exciting time both with the applications we are developing, and also with the expansion of our social advertising platform,” stated Lance Tokuda, the CEO of RockYou!
RockYou! Receives Series B Funding
RockYou! is a company that designs widgets known for appearing all over MySpace. The company was previously placed in the shadow of Photobucket because of the controversies that were happening between Photobucket and MySpace.Â
But now RockYou! is boasting 150 million widgets served by 10 million registered users and now receiving Series B funding. After Photobucket was acquired by MySpace, there are now talks of other widget company acquisitions which makes the funding of RockYou! seem a lot more promising.Â
The competition between RockYou! and Slide is heating up and what happens in the near future will definetely be interesting.
Photobucket isn’t the only on the block to be acquired by MySpace. According to TechCrunch, there are talks of Flektor getting acquired as well. Flektor allows users to create slideshows that include effects, transitions, photos, text, and video. The amount rumored for Flektor is $10-$20 million.
Categories Flektor, RockYou, Slide
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