Joost gets…juiced?
Just a quick follow up to our popular Joost invite post (now closed). Whether or not the hundreds of people we pitched invites to think Joost is cool, the big pockets believe it is. They’ve secured $45 million in funding from some serious players - here’s more info from ClickZ News Blog.
Five firms have joined a huge $45 million funding round for Web video platform Joost, which has experienced some hiccups during its first days of unlimited beta release.
Two of the investors, CBS and Viacom, are also Joost content partners. Their involvement may generate some alarm at NBC Universal and News Corp.’s still nameless premium video joint venture, whose hopes rest in the entertainment business uniting to present a unified front against YouTube.
The other three investors are Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Li Ka Shing Foundation. The money will be used for product development, global expansion and service offerings, including localization.
Meanwhile, video platform Roo also completed a financing round. The company will spend $25 million proceeds from the sale of common stock to expand its sales and marketing efforts, fund operations, and pursue already announced acquisitions.
How would you use $45 million to launch a new product? And no, a logo wrapped Lamborghini doesn’t count.
4 Comments
Ryan Christensen said on May 11, 2007...
You know, I’ve given some serious thought to this in the past, but I tend to view all my projects from the “how can we grow this organically” / bootstrap line of thought. Working within your means, and growing when success supports it.
Granted, this isn’t exactly possible with certain products (something like Joost, for example.) I guess in my case I just might have to opt for the logo-wrapped Lambo though!
Ross Hill said on May 11, 2007...
It obviously depends heavily on your product, but I think having $45 million would be hard. Removing the constraint of cash would make it easy to forget about conversion rates and getting value for money - because you have a **itload of it anyway!
First step would be to ask a few marketing experts what they would do. Set a budget and spread the cash over time. Break it down into more manageable sized bits. Marketing would still be about getting your product in front of your target market, and then getting them to tell their friends about it. With more cash you could reach more target markets, more niches, across a wider geographic area. It might be tough in practise, but I’d like to be able to forget that the cash was in the bank and just market as usual, although maybe on a wider scale.
Oh and with $45 mil I think the car could be included nearly as a rounding error :)
Kyle said on May 13, 2007...
Well I would have to say, I think it’s hilarious how some companies are embracing the internet video revolution while others are fighting it.
Good luck Viacom.
Robert Dewey said on May 14, 2007...
Joost is surprising because they are getting funded based simply on conceptualization and speculation. Most companies - 95% of them - need strong growth and traction before funding is even an option. My guess is that someone involved with Joost (an A-level exec) is pretty well known.
I agree with Ryan and Ross, particularly about growing organically and the fact that $45M would blind most startups… Like I said, there must be some pretty tough A-level execs involved.
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