Right after racing to the top of the App Store charts, Viddy just announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a long list of celebrities — not just tech celebrities, but also the kind that non-techies have heard of.
Here’s who invested: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Omniture founder Josh James, Skull Candy chairman Jeff Kearl, Roc Nation (the record label and entertainment company co-founded by Jay-Z), Overbrook Entertainment (founded by Will Smith and manager James Lassiter), ShoeDazzle founder Brian Lee, professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, soccer star Gerard Pique, and (I’m quoting from the press release here) “pop culture icon” Shakira.
Viddy actually raised a $6 million Series A back in February from a more traditional group of venture investors, but co-founder and CEO Brett O’Brien told The New York Times that bringing on celebrities was a way to help the service maintain its momentum. He noted, for example, that “Shakira has 40 million fans on Facebook and she is huge in Latin America. I’m pretty sure this will help us get bigger in Latin America.”
The company (which allows you to shoot 15-second videos from your smartphone, customize them movie/music clips, and share them), launched in April 2011. It credits its recent growth to the effort it put into recruiting celebrities and influencers, plus its recently launched Facebook Timeline app.
Biz Stone is co-founder of Twitter, a real-time, one-to-many network that is changing the way people communicate around the world. Previously, Biz helped build other popular social media services Xanga, Blogger, and Odeo. After launching the journalling service Xanga in 2000, Biz went on to publish two books about the origins and social significance of blogging. In 2003, Google invited Biz to join a recently acquired Blogger.com team at its Silicon Valley headquarters in a full-time, senior role. Biz helped...
Viddy is a simple way for anyone to capture, beautify, and share amazing videos with the world. Capture key moments of your life, instantly produce it into a beautiful video, and share it with those who matter most. We’ve imagined a better way to experience mobile videos: Instantly create visually stunning clips using our cinematic production packs. One-click sharing to the social web, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Meaningful feedback from those who matter most – friends, family and more. Realtime video discovery...
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Berlin, Germany
Boston, MA
