REDWOOD CITY, CA -- 11/03/08 --
RockYou, the leading innovator, creator
and distributor of applications on the social web, today announced an
additional $17M in investments from
Softbank, leading
shareholder of Yahoo! Japan, and
SK Telecom
Ventures, the venture capital arm of SK Telecom. In June of 2008
RockYou 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 their
presence in the Asia-Pacific market. RockYou has been focusing development
efforts overseas, including expansion into China's largest social network,
Xiaonei.
SoftBank and RockYou will also set up a new joint venture company that will
develop widget and application products and services for use on PCs and
mobile devices in the Asian market, in particular the Japanese, Korean,
Russian, and Chinese markets. Each of the JV Partners will contribute
technology, know-how, systems and human resources to the Joint Venture.
The new financing will also fuel RockYou's domestic growth, including
the opening of New York, Los Angeles and Detroit offices. The company will
also explore the acquisition of applications that can leverage RockYou's
existing 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 the
RockYou
Ads network, including Automotive, Retail and Entertainment specific
application verticals. Launched earlier this year, the RockYou Ads network
has given brands such as eBay Autos, Gap and Toyota the ability to launch
customized applications and interactive campaigns to capture the attention
of social network users. RockYou's applications are available on all of the
major social networks, including Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, hi5 and
MySpace. Today RockYou's reach spans 100M monthly uniques with over 8
billion page views.
Quotes:
Lance Tokuda, RockYou CEO and Founder
"We are thrilled to welcome Softbank and SK Telecom Ventures as strategic
investors. They will play a leading role as we extend the RockYou brand
throughout Asia. We are also happy to announce the formation of a joint
venture between RockYou and Softbank. The JV will create and distribute
mobile and social web applications in Asia."
Patrick Chung, Managing Director, SK Telecom Ventures
"RockYou has shown unprecedented growth for an early stage company. We look
forward to working closely with RockYou to help them further expand their
domestic and Asian operations, particularly in Korea."
About RockYou
RockYou is the leading innovator, creator and distributor of applications
on the social web. The RockYou Ads network provides customized
application-based branding and advertising campaigns that can be easily
distributed across social networking platforms and engage directly with
active users. RockYou Ads hosts the largest social advertising network
spanning social network platforms including Bebo, hi5, Facebook, Friendster
and MySpace. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, RockYou is funded
by DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Partech International and Sequoia
Capital, SK Telecom Ventures and Softbank.
For more information about RockYou, please visit
http://rockyou.com/corp/about.php
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 mobile
communications, 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 a
total 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
SK Telecom Ventures, headquartered in Menlo Park, California, is a
dedicated venture capital fund that looks to invest in companies that can
leverage relationships with the fund's sole limited partner, SK Telecom. SK
Telecom (NYSE: SKM) (KSE: 017670) is the top wireless communication
provider in Korea, where it has more than 22 million subscribers,
accounting for more than 50% of the total market. The company, established
in 1984, reached KRW 11.28 trillion in revenue in 2007. SK Telecom was the
first to launch and commercialized CDMA, CDMA 2001x,CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA
networks, and it currently provides cellular, wireless internet, mobile
media, global roaming service and more. For more information about SK
Telecom Ventures, please visit http://www.sktvc.com
Vanessa Camones
theMIX agency for RockYou
Email Contact
415.412.2856
