Like bizzaro Facebooks, Tagged and Hi5 launched in 2004 to help you meet new people instead of connecting you with friends you already know. Through social games and paid dating features, they earned a surprising amount of revenue despite being relatively unknown. Tagged bought Hi5 in 2011 before branching out into standalone social app development and renamed the parent company If(we). But… Read More
Old-school social networks Tagged and Hi5 bought by MeetMe for $60M
Photo-printing services abound online, from dotcom-era brands like Shutterfly to services launched through the years by Apple, Amazon, Costco and Walgreens. Startups keep cropping up, too — no surprise given the number of photos people take and share these days, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and social media. Now, one photo-printing startup called Chatbooks has raised… Read More
Chatbooks raises $11.5 million to put photo printing on autopilot
Zeotap, a startup that helps telecom companies sell their data to advertisers, announced today that it has raised €12 million in Series B funding (that’s just under $13 million). Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Projjol Banerjea told me that while there’s “decent data” available for online advertisers targeting desktop users, things are shakier on the mobile… Read More
A Taiwan-based startup called Next Entertainment has raised $25 million in an outsized Series A round of funding for apps that make it possible to live stream for a living. The company’s founder and CEO, Andy Zhong, is no stranger to tech and new media. He previously started FunPlus, a social gaming company acquired by a Chinese conglomerate, Zhongji, in 2014 for $960 million. In… Read More
Next Entertainment wants to make it possible to live stream for a living
Apptopia, a startup that began its life as a marketplace for reselling apps before morphing into the app intelligence provider that’s now used by Google, Facebook, Pinterest, NBCU, and others, has closed on a second seed round of $2.7 million. The round, which was led by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, brings Apptopia’s total raise to date to $5 million.… Read More
Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures back Apptopia’s next-gen app intelligence platform