Tango Takes $42 Million VC Round To The Bank And Its Mobile Video Calling To The PC

Erick Schonfeld

Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the executive producer of DEMO. He is also a partner at bMuse, a product incubator in New York City. Schonfeld is the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily... → Learn More

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Tango logo

Mobile video calling app Tango is taking off, recently passing 17 million registered users in half the time it took Skype. It got that far with about $14 million in venture capital. Today, Tango announced that it just raised another $42 million in a series B financing led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the same VC firm that first invested in Skype. Angel investor Len Blavatnik and Alex Zubillaga also participated.

So far, Tango has been a mobile-only product, allowing people on both Androids and iPhones to conduct video chats with each other. With the proliferation of video cameras in smartphones, the service is taking off. The company will now take the fight to Skype’s home turf, the PC. A Windows PC version will launch by the end of the summer, allowing Tango video calls to take place between iPhones, Windows PCs, Android phones, and iPads.

Tango co-founder Eric Setton will be speaking at our Mobile First CrunchUp on July 29. So will Howard Hartenbaum, the August Capital VC who invested in Skype way back when he was working at Draper Fisher. The two should have plenty to talk about.

Company: Tango
Website: tango.me
Launch Date: September 9, 2009
Funding: $87M

Tango is an all-in-one social networking app that gives your unique and meaningful ways to interact with your friends and family. Tango allows you to send free text messages, play games, and make free phone calls and video calls with those you care about. Tango works on iPhones, iPod touch, hundreds of Android phones and Windows Phone devices, as well as tablets and PCs, and provides high quality experience over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. More than 100 million people...

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Financial-organization: Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)
Website: dfj.com
Launch Date: October 1985

DFJ is a venture capital firm that was founded in 1985. DFJ has backed more than 400 companies in enterprise, software, mobile, cleantech, energy, health care and other disruptive categories. DFJ’s team operates across the globe and specializes in many industries and geographies. DFJ works with companies in seed, early and growth stages.

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