PodShow Bags $15m in Fresh Money September 28, 2006
Posted by John in Technology.trackback
Dan Primack of PE Wire got the word on the PodShow B-Round of $15m in fresh money. Dan writes:
*** I have been a skeptic of venture capital involvement with podcasting companies since day one, even if day one wasn’t all that long ago. I just struggle to see venture-type ROI for most of these deals, unless they can be flipped before Yahoo, Google, etc. put down their tall glasses of content Kool-Aid. This isn’t to say that the podcasting market is inherently unprofitable, because it isn’t. VC-backed companies, however, are supposed to produce something a bit more exciting than respectable margins.
Some VCs agree with me, but it is clear that many others do not. Case in point is PodShow inc., which recently raised $15 million in Series B funding. This follows up on an $8.85 million Series A deal from last summer, from Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Ram Shiram and Jerry Newman. All four are back this time around, but an undisclosed lead came aboard at a major pre-money valuation step-up. I know lots of firms that it isn’t – NEA, Oak, Spark, Greylock, etc. – but that is only useful if there was a narrower market of potential backers.
Rumors had been floating around the DEMO conference that this deal might get even larger, but Ray Lane of Kleiner Perkins assures me that $15 million is all for now. He also acknowledges that PodShow has become a bit of a VC bellwether for the podcasting market, as its original funding was soon followed by deals for companies like Odeo and Podtech.net. In other words, expect additional podcasting deals to come down the pike shortly. Be interesting to see when the first exits occur…
Congrats to PodShow for raising money for their venture.
[...] Congrats to PodTech competitors Podshow, who just got $15 million in a second round of VC financing, John Furrier learned. Can’t wait to see Adam Curry and team at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo (I’ll be traveling down there this afternoon, drop me a line if you wanna get together. My cell phone is always on my blog — over there on the right side. No, down lower.) [...]
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[...] Congrats to PodTech competitors Podshow, who just got $15 million in a second round of VC financing, John Furrier learned. Can’t wait to see Adam Curry and team at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo (I’ll be traveling down there this afternoon, drop me a line if you wanna get together. My cell phone is always on my blog — over there on the right side. No, down lower.) [...]
Although everyone is talking about it, Branded Entertainment is so new, I can hardly find any relevant links on Google. In fact, it took Omelet about a month to get a site up after Bud announced its big initiative and put a plug in for them in the article. For information about a company that has been spearheading the branded space, take a look at http://www.scienceandfiction.com, headed up by entertainment vets and Kevin Townsend, the former Lucas Digital GM. Look at the Dove and Red Bull spots. Multi-platform, entertaining, and targeted…Good work!
Brad,
thanks for the pointer to science and fiction