Wow – Clown Co. Got That $1 billion Valuation (still nameless though)

Is ANYONE at NBC or News Corp. embarrassed that they can’t agree on a name, even a working name (or a website), for their new Not-A-YouTube-Killer video joint venture?

It was announced in March to fanfare, and a steady stream of news has been written about it ever since. But no one has a name for it, not even the New York Times which reported today that the joint venture managed to find someone willing to throw $100 million at it for 10% (reports that they were pitching this came out in June). And so we keep referring to it as Clown Co., which is the name Google execs reportedly refer to it as behind closed doors.

But back to the news. Providence Equity Partners, a Rhode Island based private equity firm, put up the $100 million to buy 10% of a company that didn’t exist three months ago. I hope that means a launch is imminent. It would be hard to launch without a name.