RockYou Raises A Whopper – $50 Million In Venture Capital

Social Network application developer and advertising platform RockYou has raised a whopping $50 million in a Series D round of financing from existing investor Softbank, we’ve confirmed with the company. RockYou, which launched in November 2005, has now raised $119 million in capital and has revenues rumored in the $30 million to $40 million/year range.

The company continues to develop and acquire social networking applications, but a big part of their business is serving advertising to their own as well as third party apps. And they are now taking a deep dive into the rather sensitive area of in-game offers. Last week the company spoke publicly about Scamville, saying that they would only offer Facebook compliant offers. When asked what types of offers that includes, the company said they’re looking at paying users to watch and respond to videos (like clips from upcoming movies), and getting them engaged with nonprofit groups like ASPCA and UNICEF.

There are 213 million monthly users of apps that RockYou owns directly or has advertising relationships with, says the company. And tomorrow they’ll launch a new virtual goods application on MySpace, called Gifts By RockYou, that lets users buy gifts for friends.