Yesterday, at our NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco, I announced that we had closed our Series B financing. The amount of money we raised, however, was misreported (it’s more than the figures being circulated out there), but for now, I am not disclosing the actual amount.
The round was led by our current investors, True Ventures, along with some new angel investors who also believe in my vision for our company, which essentially revolves around the concept of immediate media.
Our new angels are Rakesh Mathur, Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, three gentlemen I met for the first time back in the days of Web 1.0, when they were at Junglee. We have since stayed in touch and I have come to know them well. Like True Ventures, they believe that we are building an exciting new media entity and wanted to be part of the dream.
Their work in contextual discovery and content makes them ideal advisers. It is my belief that the media business is going to have to incorporate technologies in clever ways in order to fully capitalize on the immense power of the Internet.
Many of you may be wondering, why raise more money? There are a multitude of reasons, but the most important one is that we want to scale our operations — both editorial and events — over the next 12 months. I will provide more detail about our plans in the coming weeks, including unveiling a new, more simplified look for GigaOM.
The funding will also allow us to serve our community for a long time, and hopefully you will reward us by coming back — not just here, but to our network sites as well. (WebWorkerDaily, NewTeeVee, FoundRead and Earth2Tech.)
Now it’s time to get back to building and growing our business…
4 trackbacks so far
7:19 PM PT
[...] Om Malik says the money will be used to build out the editorial operation as well as hosting more events. For example, [...]
2:59 AM PT
[...] Officer in August 2007 to manage the growing network. In November 2007, GigaOmni Media raised a second round of funding from True Ventures and angel investors Rakesh Mathur, Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman for [...]
9:32 AM PT
[...] In India, Get GigaOM Alerts Via GupShup — Rakesh Mathur, co-founder of Junglee and an investor the parent company of GigaOM recently launched GupShup, an SMS-based Twitter-meets-Group chat service that had over 4 million [...]
7:20 AM PT
[...] Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management. True Ventures, our primary investors thus far, also participated in the round. The round was blessed by our angel investors, Rakesh Mathur, Venky [...]
17 comments so far
6:39 PM PT
Congrats OM!
6:44 PM PT
Thanks Umer.
6:56 PM PT
Nice job! I like is the smaller round as it makes you FOCUS and run it with a fiscally responsible approach.
btw - also like the direction you and the team are heading. will keep a look out for job posting. Yesterday’s launch was seriously was when about 200 light bulbs went off in my head.
Cheers!!!
9:09 PM PT
Congratulations OM!
I’m sure you must be raising money for a bigger vision you have for the company. Rest assured, VC’s money is in safe hands.
9:13 PM PT
Hi Om,
Congratulations on the B-round and on the success of NewTeeVee Live. You’re building a company that has both meaning and style, and it’s a privilege for us to be involved. We’re thrilled to be a part of the GigaOm team.
Welcome Rakesh, Venky and Anand! We look forward to working together.
Best,
Jon and the True team
9:26 PM PT
@omfut
thank you for your kind words. it is a lot of trust our investors have put in us, just like folks like yourself have in our words. it is fun to build a company - hard work for sure, but fun as well.
9:28 PM PT
@ ALEX,
For a middle class boy from New Delhi, the value of money is much higher than just cash. I agree with you - we have a small, dedicated and focused team and we hope we are doing the right thing all the time. Thanks again!
9:57 PM PT
@ Om
You’re welcome. I didn’t know you were from New Delhi. I’ve traveled to New Delhi 4 times in the last two years for business. I’ve never seen anything like it. The city doesn’t sleep. The city that really caught my attention was Gurgaon. The amount of fiber that was going into the development of that city was just awesome.
10:51 PM PT
Congrats OM very Nice job
11:19 PM PT
Good work Om!
11:47 PM PT
@ Alex,
I sometimes wonder if the big cities actually ever sleep? London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and New York are well known examples, and now we can add Shanghai, Mumbai and Delhi to the list.
12:53 AM PT
Congrats dude :)
6:09 AM PT
Why big cities? My home town, Madurai, which is otherwise known as the world’s biggest village is known as “Thoonga Nagaram” (literally, city that never sleeps).
6:36 AM PT
Congrats, Om et al. You and your gang are excellent at what you do - I’ll be consuming your content as long as you’re publishing it.
6:08 PM PT
Congrats GigaOm Team!
-brian
SingleFeed
8:35 PM PT
Well…all i can say his that I believe in you vision. You will shine!!
11:44 AM PT
Congrats Om. Keep up the good work.