Comments on: Meebo Funded by Sequoia?

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:26:09 +0000

Its a great web based messenger.

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

Have a great day.

By: natalie

natalie — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 12:34:40 +0000

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

By: TechCrunch » Meebo Confirms Sequoia Funding

TechCrunch » Meebo Confirms Sequoia Funding — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 00:47:31 +0000

[...] Meebo confirmed the rumor that they have received funding from Sequoia Capital on their blog. Congratulations to everyone involved. [...]

By: Schrade.Blog

Schrade.Blog — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:42:25 +0000

Meebo Funded

Looks like Meebo got funded by Sequoia. I’m not seeing a business model here, but then again, who knows. I can tell you though, that very soon Meebo is going to find themselves on the block lists of all of the major firewalls. When that happens they’…

By: jaywood

jaywood — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:47:48 +0000

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

http://blog.meebo.com/

By: jB: no - that's definitely not good enough

jB: no - that's definitely not good enough — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 14:16:23 +0000

Meebo receives funding from Sequoia Capital

Sooo it seems the rumors have been true: the ajax / web-based instant messenger site named meebo took external funding from Sequoia Capital to fund future growth and business development. Nice to hear keeping in mind they’ve been around the block only…

By: Erik Schwartz

Erik Schwartz — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:23:38 +0000

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.

By: Serge

Serge — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 07:34:55 +0000

$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.

By: Austin Taylor

Austin Taylor — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:27:32 +0000

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.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:23:15 +0000

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.

By: Jo

Jo — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:54:41 +0000

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.

By: ThePef

ThePef — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:33:05 +0000

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.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:01:19 +0000

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

By: jaywood

jaywood — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 20:31:04 +0000

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?

By: Tracey

Tracey — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:43:33 +0000

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.

By: Hooman Radfar

Hooman Radfar — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:17:41 +0000

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?

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:34:55 +0000

Just happened at MS

http://bink.nu/...rticle5599.bink

By: anon

anon — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:33:01 +0000

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

By: Rob Poitras

Rob Poitras — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:32:11 +0000

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

By: Jeff Rogers

Jeff Rogers — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:23:30 +0000

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.

By: Jean carl

Jean carl — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:14:06 +0000

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

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:45:03 +0000

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!

By: It looks obvious

It looks obvious — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:22:45 +0000

Meebo, again.

I wrote before about Meebo and I still think that although the cool programming work the company has no business case. In short I argue that not every application should be web application, the platform should depend on its use. In addition I do not …

By: anon

anon — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:20:55 +0000

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.

By: Erik Schwartz

Erik Schwartz — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:49:33 +0000

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