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December 14, 2005

Meebo Funded by Sequoia?

Michael Arrington

32 comments »

I just got back from back-to-back (to back) holiday parties and the rumors are flying that Meebo, which I wrote about a couple of days ago noting their stellar growth, has closed funding from Sequoia Capital at a $10 million pre-money valuation. I have not confirmed this with the company and it could be inaccurate. That’s quite a valuation for a company that is barely 12 weeks old.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. CrunchNotes » Ok, maybe there is a bubble?

    December 14th, 2005 at 11:53 pm

  2. BlueAce » Archief » De geruchtenmachine draait rond Meebo

    December 15th, 2005 at 4:02 am

  3. It looks obvious

    December 15th, 2005 at 6:22 am

  4. jB: no - that's definitely not good enough

    December 16th, 2005 at 6:16 am

  5. Schrade.Blog

    December 16th, 2005 at 11:42 am

  6. TechCrunch » Meebo Confirms Sequoia Funding

    December 25th, 2005 at 4:47 pm

Comments

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  1. Rod Edwards

    December 14th, 2005 at 11:27 pm

    Bubble 2.0?

  2. Ethan

    December 15th, 2005 at 12:23 am

    Nothing spells bubble like ajax-use-of-open-protocols-with-breathless-endorsement.

    Sorry, but not seeing the potential here. Trillian? Has a business model. Meebo? Not so much.

  3. dusoft

    December 15th, 2005 at 1:04 am

    Well, I don’t see any problem for them to add advertising in few minutes…

  4. Matt

    December 15th, 2005 at 1:27 am

    Yah, I really want contextual advertising changing according to my conversation…

    Good for them if they did get funding, but if I can think of 10+ holes to poke in any business model one could imagine for their service, I’d be shocked if they did get lots of funding.

  5. Alexander

    December 15th, 2005 at 2:58 am

    well meebo probably got a lot of potentional, but that isn’t worth $10 million.

    and matt is right, someone will find a way ;)

  6. Erik Schwartz

    December 15th, 2005 at 5:49 am

    There’s a difference between a feature, a product, and a business.

  7. anon

    December 15th, 2005 at 6:20 am

    if the slapped together the AIM application, maybe they could make some mroe applications and come out with the first true ajax desktop. Their layout kind of suggests that.

  8. Jon

    December 15th, 2005 at 7:45 am

    The fast growth followed by funding doesn’t strike me as a sign of dot con 2.0. Here’s the real bubble angle from my standpoint: there are a number of companies that offer this kind of chat application except that the UI is Windows or Linux based. How much work would it take one of those companies to migrate to web services and re-skin the UI inside a web page? Probably not much. Of course, you can say it’s 100% different, this is the rich web internet, existing companies are all obsolete and will probably be forced out of business!

  9. Jean carl

    December 15th, 2005 at 8:14 am

    Please explain me the biz model of Meebo,
    i hear everywhere 10 M seed for Meebo, 30 M Del.icio.us , 45 M $ Riya? …

    I DO NOT UNDERSTAND

  10. Jeff Rogers

    December 15th, 2005 at 8:23 am

    I think there is a lot that is not seen (business plan, future vision, management team and experience) by us regular folks to judge if this company was worthy of funding.

    We may be seeing the AIM mash-up but what they presented to VCs for funding may be an entirely different animal. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

  11. Rob Poitras

    December 15th, 2005 at 8:32 am

    umm, what are you going to do different than they are right now with 10 mil in the bank?

  12. anon

    December 15th, 2005 at 10:33 am

    Yes, we should assume they have something up their sleeve. I don’t see meebo as an acquisition candidate as is, and sequoia is smart enough to see that as well. They clearly will be leveraging their user base. Not sure how yet, but I personally can think of 50 things to do with 350,000 active users (and i don’t just mean push advertising).

    -A

  13. Rick

    December 15th, 2005 at 10:34 am

    Just happened at MS ;-)

    http://bink.nu/Article5599.bink

  14. Hooman Radfar

    December 15th, 2005 at 11:17 am

    I like Meebo and use it. I truly want them to make money and succeed, but $10M is a bit crazy, unless there is something under the hood that I am completely missing. The switching cost for their users is literally NOTHING. If someone else introduces a web-based IM client that is better, then what? Am I nuts?

  15. Tracey

    December 15th, 2005 at 11:43 am

    A possible model for meebo is to sell the software they have made to other sites and sites. Because having a web-based messenger that works with many protocols is truly cross-platform.

    Rick - thanks for sharing that link.

    Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005!
    “Using Live Communications Server and either the Web-based or desktop Office Communicator, people can connect simultaneously to IM services from Microsoft’s MSN, America Online and Yahoo. Communicator Web Access can be downloaded at no additional charge by those who have licensed Live Communications Server 2005. ”

    Gimme a break! That’s funny.

  16. jaywood

    December 15th, 2005 at 12:31 pm

    Unlike meebo, msft actually licensed access to the aim and yahoo networks, presumably in exchange for a revenue share. Meebo could be blocked from accessing these networks. Why would sequoia fund meebo before they’ve negotiated licenses from aol/yahoo/msft?

  17. Andrew

    December 15th, 2005 at 1:01 pm

    Meebo is cool and all, but it hardly has a business model and certainly isn’t worth 10 million. What’s going on?

  18. ThePef

    December 15th, 2005 at 1:33 pm

    Really don’t get it. All of the IM networks are extremely protective and can shut them down anytime they want. Unless they have backend agreements in place with MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! this isn’t going to work, and 10 mil is a ridiculous exposure.

  19. Jo

    December 15th, 2005 at 1:54 pm

    You guys are idiots. The RUMOR is that their valuation is $10 million by ONE venture capital money.

    I’ll break down the english for you:

    1. It may or may not be true.

    2. They are not worth $10 million, only valued as such by Sequioa.

    3. They did not automatically get $10 million dollars cash in the bank.

    This is why dot coms crashed the first time, because idiots don’t know how to read financial statements or analyze a business.

  20. Jon

    December 15th, 2005 at 2:23 pm

    That’s right $10 mil is only the post-valuation number. Sequoia may have invested $1 mil, and through some legal trickery gotten control of 20% of the company stock and full control of the board.

  21. Austin Taylor

    December 15th, 2005 at 2:27 pm

    Jo is right. If they are valued at $10m, it means that Sequioa would want 5% of the stock if they were to invest $500k. That’s all.

  22. Serge

    December 15th, 2005 at 11:34 pm

    $10M - sounds like the minimum Sequoia would usually invest; and considering that no more than 1 out of every 10 startups is truly successful, meebo is not the worst peek. I would like to see the other “web 2.0″ companies with CEOs in expensive jackets who’ve received much bigger sums from Sequoia recently.

  23. Erik Schwartz

    December 16th, 2005 at 3:23 am

    Sequoia didn’t invest 10 million even if the rumor is true. The VALUATION was 10 million.

    If this is true, Sequoia probably invested 2 million (which is about as small as Sequoia will go) in a Series A round and got 20%.

    Sequoia will want a 5X return so they’ll want Meebo to be worth 50 million at a liquidity event. Clearly the current product suite isn’t worth anything like 50 million. But the team executed quickly and built a strong product and that’s the start of a track record.

    My guess is their pitch meeting had little to do with their current released products.

  24. jaywood

    December 16th, 2005 at 7:47 am

    It’s done. Meebo’s reporting sequoia funding on their blog. No details yet.

    http://blog.meebo.com/

  25. natalie

    July 3rd, 2006 at 4:34 am

    hi does any one no how to get on to msn as i can’t get on to it at sixth form coz it has been blocked and i have tried lots of ways but just cant get on to it

  26. Mike

    October 30th, 2006 at 1:26 pm

    Check out http://www.koolim.com,

    Its a great web based messenger.

    It supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Sametime and others.

    Have a great day.

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