RockYou Announces Additional $17 Million Investment From SoftBank and SK telecom ventures, Raising C Round Total to $52 Million
REDWOOD CITY, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 11/03/08 -- RockYou, the leading innovator, creatorand distributor of applications on the social web, today announced anadditional $17M in investments from Softbank, leadingshareholder of Yahoo! Japan, and SK telecom ventures, the venture capital arm of SK telecom. In June of 2008RockYou announced an initial C Round investment of $35M, led by DCM;this strategic round brings the company's funding to a total of $67M.
The combined strategic financing will enable RockYou to extend theirpresence in the Asia-Pacific market. RockYou has been focusing developmentefforts overseas, including expansion into China's largest social network,Xiaonei.
SoftBank and RockYou will also set up a new joint venture company that willdevelop widget and application products and services for use on PCs andmobile devices in the Asian market, in particular the Japanese, Korean,Russian, and Chinese markets. Each of the JV Partners will contributetechnology, know-how, systems and human resources to the Joint Venture.
The new financing will also fuel RockYou's domestic growth, includingthe opening of New York, Los Angeles and Detroit offices. The company willalso explore the acquisition of applications that can leverage RockYou'sexisting network in line with the company's product roadmap.
In addition, RockYou will continue to grow the internal ad sales force,develop innovative channels for brands and vertical markets to utilize theRockYouAds network, including Automotive, Retail and Entertainment specificapplication verticals. Launched earlier this year, the RockYou Ads networkhas given brands such as eBay Autos, Gap and Toyota the ability to launchcustomized applications and interactive campaigns to capture the attentionof social network users. RockYou's applications are available on all of themajor social networks, including Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, hi5 andMySpace. Today RockYou's reach spans 100M monthly uniques with over 8billion page views.
Quotes:
Lance Tokuda, RockYou CEO and Founder
"We are thrilled to welcome Softbank and SK telecom ventures as strategicinvestors. They will play a leading role as we extend the RockYou brandthroughout Asia. We are also happy to announce the formation of a jointventure between RockYou and Softbank. The JV will create and distributemobile and social web applications in Asia."
Patrick Chung, Managing Director, SK telecom ventures
"RockYou has shown unprecedented growth for an early stage company. We lookforward to working closely with RockYou to help them further expand theirdomestic and Asian operations, particularly in Korea."
About RockYou
RockYou is the leading innovator, creator and distributor of applicationson the social web. The RockYou Ads network provides customizedapplication-based branding and advertising campaigns that can be easilydistributed across social networking platforms and engage directly withactive users. RockYou Ads hosts the largest social advertising networkspanning social network platforms including Bebo, hi5, Facebook, Friendsterand MySpace. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, RockYou is fundedby DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International and SequoiaCapital, SK telecom ventures and Softbank.For more information about RockYou, please visithttp://rockyou.com/corp/about.html
To learn more about RockYou Ads, please visit http://rockyouads.com
Access RockYouSuperBlog at http://blog.rockyouads.com
About SoftBank Group
SOFTBANK GROUP offers its customers a range of services including mobilecommunications, broadband infrastructure, fixed-line telecommunications,internet culture, e-Commerce, and others. SOFTBANK MOBILE achieved the No.1 position in net additions for FY 2007 in the Japanese market, with atotal of 19,633,200 subscribers as of September 2008.
For more information, visit http://www.softbank.co.jp/en/index.html
About SK telecom ventures
Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, SK telecom ventures (www.sktvc.com) is a dedicated venture capital fund with US $100m under management that looks to make financial returns on investments through funding internet, mobile, and digital media companies that can leverage the fund's sole limited partner, SK telecom. SK telecom (www.sktelecom.com) has an international reputation for delivering innovative media, mobile, and internet services in the cutting-edge market of South Korea. It is leveraging its technology expertise and operational know-how to advance overseas into new markets such as the United States and China. SK telecom ventures is based in the United States but pursues investment opportunities globally and is willing to lead or co-lead investment rounds.
Vanessa Camones, the MIX agency for RockYouEmail, Contact 415.412.2856
Back to Press Center