eBuddy Announces 5 Million Euros from Lowland Capital

Web IM service eBuddy announced its first round of funding today, taking 5 Million Euros (about $6.25 million USD) from Lowland Capital Partners. Both eBuddy (formerly known as e-Messenger) and its funders are from the Netherlands. The company says it has 35 million users worldwide including 4 million mobile users. Founded in 2003, they say they are now adding more than a million and a half new users every month. We covered the first glimpse of this funding in June but the sum and funder weren’t announced until today.

eBuddy’s primary competition is Mountain View’s Meebo, a startup backed by Sequoia Capital. That investment was for $3.5 million based on a pre-money valuation of about $9 million.
eBuddy serves web chat sessions in a pop up window, Meebo in the primary browser window or in an embedded frame on other pages via their MeeboMe service. See our previous coverage of eBuddy here and of Meebo here. See also upcoming challenger Geesee.

You can see VentureBeat’s coverage here.