Word about social network Hi5’s $20 million financing leaked earlier today. But that isn’t it for social networking funding news. We hear it from a good source, but without confirmation by the company, that Tagged has raised its own $15 million round, on a $102 million pre-money valuation.
We do not know who made the investment. This is Tagged’s third round of financing. They previously raised two rounds – $1.5 from angel investors in September 2005, and $7 million from Mayfield three months later.
Like Hi5, Tagged is profitable. Back in May they were adding more new users per day – 350,000 – than MySpace.
With nearly $1 billion in venture capital invested in new web startups from April – June 2007 alone, its clear that silicon valley is rolling in money again. With all the hype around Facebook, second tier (but still huge) social networks are an easy bet to get big money. Let’s all just hope for a soft landing.
It’s a good time to be a web entrepreneur. Thanks for igniting this whole thing Mike.
Hi5 is very popular in India. Most of the college goers use hi5. My first account was with hi5 and later with orkut and other websites.
How did the spam site get a valuation of $117M? I have gotten more apologies from red-faced friends for inadvertent-spamming from using Tagged service then any other web service.
Also, can somebody explain to me why, if I click on the “browse” in Tagged, 80%+ of the pictures are of scantily dressed women? And many of them have joined on June 7, 2007; how convenient! When did the demographic of web surfer change? Why didn’t I get a memo?
Congrats to Tagged!
I’m curious to see why this money is going to be used to invest in the company that’s already profitable.
If there are other VCs looking to invest in social networks, there’s a very large list of “White Label Social Networking sites” to look at here:
http://www.web-...king-platforms/
Tagged’s system of invitation resembles that of a virus to me. It automatically checks all your e-mail contacts and sends invitations to a lot of people. But do you really want to tag them all? That is the question.
What did they spend the $1.5 on from angel investors?
I hope that this ends well…
Sorry for going off topic, but I think this issue is in the best interests of The Global Internet Village and needs to be revisited.
I tried to post it on
http://www.tech...-tipping-point/
but the thread has been closed.
With my recent experience with Adam Lasnik in GWHF and Matt Cutts on his blog, I have found that Google’s culture is changing from, “Do no Evil,” to “Hide the Evil.”
So Michael, here is your chance to revisit the issue at hand.
If you are to start a thread on this subject I would be more than glad to contribute based on my experience with the different Googlers over the past 3 months and shed some light on this new age culture at Google Inc.
You need to grind your axe elsewhere, Igor. Substantiate an argument and perhaps there will be interest. Whining is pathetic.
So much money going into these, some are bound to lose money for investors:
This one tops the list!
I concur with commenter #2. tagged is using spam and deceiptive tactics to get more users
“A million here, a million there, pretty soon it’s real money. “
I am jumping on the bandwagon… I think this company has an uphill battle. They may be adding tons of users per day as you state Mike, but how many of them are active? I mean, users inadvertently spam users in their contact list (and really, do you really want to ‘tag’ everyone in your contact list?); the e-mail message that people receive says something to the effect of “Are you friends with so and so?… Click here… or they may think you said no”
I mean, this is kind of deceptive, as other users have already said. Regardless of how many users Tagged says they have or are adding per day, I seriously doubt that this company’s numbers are nearly as good as Facebook’s or Hi5’s.
@2,5,10 – why is the approach any different than flixster’s, e.g.? I don’t see folks complaining about that. Seems there’s a double standard here and I am trying to figure out why.
#13
Flixster has taken its hare of flak for doing this same thing. The problem isn’t in the inherent feature itself but the way the feature is implemented. For example, I can invite my friends from my yahoo address book on facebook too and facebook will send them an invite–but same thing on tagged will result in multiple mails from tagged until my buddies sign up to stop it. One is okay the other is clear desperation.
bdb check out PHSDL
#13 (cdo) & #14 (Zaid) – Eh, Flixter, love those people – they, plus a few other sites regularly trip spam alarms over at Simpy ( http://simpy.com/ ).
Let’s see if we can embed a relevant Alexa chart in a comment:
… Hm, no preview button? It would be nice to have it, Michael & Co.
It’s amazing how much money is being thrown around these days on social sites. It will be interesting to see how many of them last, or what the next big move will be that will surpass the social networks.
The first poster has it right, now is the time to be an internet startup. I can’t believe the money that is flowing.
@ 17
actually, the time to be an internet startup was like 1999, but today is better than say 2002, for sure.
mike –
your “good source” is not so good…
better source
hi5 being one of early players, getting popularity. Not sure cyclic financing is worth or not for hi5 at this stage but yes competition is really tough.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Helping technopreneurs to excel and lead their life!
What happened to friendster? I don’t hear much about them now. I wonder what the life span of such sites is.
Hmm, should it be called Hommie Tag? It kinda looks like a Hookers lair?
Not that I would know or anything.
Seriously though when do we have enough social netowrking sites with chat/vid/dating/lifeblogging?
When will someone create a B2B social netowrk that does something of value?
I don’t see future for sites like Tagged and I don’t understand how they could raise such money. As Richard Miller said, it’s like a virus, it’s pure spam. I really hate those tagged invites coming over and over. I could bet that 95% of their users are inactive. People make the registration only to get rid of them and never come back.
“Let’s hope for a soft landing” – agreed.
I don’t think this is a good thing. I don’t think the investors in this are going to see a good outcome. But, that’s just me.
The only recognition tagg should ever receive is for their annoying and unlawful spamming practices those SOB’s. Hey Tagg to f*CK URSELF!
15M can hire the BEST engineers and product team in the bay area, word on the streets is that they already have 3 of the hottest sh*t php engineers, and a famous architect boot. I would watch out for them in the near future.
This great news to hear, as there are many niche social networks to be made!
Flixter, Tagged, et. al. are all spam sites. Most social networks get their start by spamming. Get real, only one in 10,000 sites will have real growth like Myspace or Facebook, the rest are losers and spammers.
You can PHP it, but you need to Viral it.
And Tagg aint got the Shpin…they have the Spam.
If I receive one more Spam from them to my business address they are going on PHSDL.
Igor The Troll
tagged is the ULTIMATE email virus that spams everyone. However these guys (tagged) are smart enough to know that grey haired venture capitalists don’t know the difference. i’m sure tagged’s pitch made the vcs feel young again….little do the vcs know that tagged is the ENRON of social networks.–ooO
With lots of load of money with ask search engine and social network.
Sorry, I don’t like Tagged website. The company started from scretch and grabbing millions dollars. I don’t like high montains fall into hell –
Like Enron stock…
I’m looking for “Rocky” or rags to richest startup. I like the old rocky movie where he start punching meat, chasing the chickens, listen to old man, and running street at philadelphia.
I’m looking for startup news. Where can I find one, Mike?
Techcrunch suppose to make greatest startup history blogs. You have thousands mega mike tysons startups. Come on, Mike… Find legenary startup hero. I’ve been waiting for long time.
I think internet business has become very profitable now.
What ever goes up must come down. While this old saying has some truth, it’s not fully accurate. The Dow Jones for example will likely never fall flat. The question is how low will the world of Web 2.0 fall when it starts to go? Does Web 2.0 have a real foundation?
You got VC losers here.
They coming in show off their pride. Hey, everyone. check out this website.
They tell you to bow the companies feet and kiss their wills. Come on…
I do not worship fake hero
In response to #28, Myspace and Facebook were huge spammers early on – and that is the only reason we even know who they are today. They succeeded because they had sticky qualities and kept growing, but they are scum of the earth spammers we all hate.
An example, if you got too excited and claim your startup will hit millions. Top VCs will give you money to believe your words. They send you checks.
Let say you start company called “joost.com” and you deliever PR news to media. Joost is going to be hype everywhere mouth to mouth. You secrety took VC money to buy house without letting VC know about.
Today, When you look at joost’s hype on data alexa. It’s beginning to drop. Do you why it dropped?
You’ve taking too much money out. It’s like you are not building golden gate bridge. you actually building cardboard bridge. Three months later, VC angles want to meet you. How are you going to explain your story?
With tons of money and lies will get life into trouble.
Tagged is terrible.
Aside from that, I don’t believe that total number of registered users is a reliable indicator of value. Many people belong to one or more of these sites. I’m on Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and linkedin. MySpace and LinkedIn hardly see me while Bebo sees me the most and FaceBook is inbetween. As Tagged is a spam networking site, it would be very interesting to see what their registered visitor usage stats are like.
Here’s hoping for a soft landing. I was an independent contractor for StudyWeb during web 1.0. As I remember it, the entire department was laid off in a single day – except for a very select few higher ups. Don’t want to see that sort of thing again.
Why do such sleezy companies get so much money?
I’ve had friends who’ve signed up for tagged – only that the only real thing they signed up for was a crapload of spam and unsolicited mail.
Great post! Enjoyed reading it.
Soft landing?
That may be hard…Google is PMSing…
Did you see the 30% drop for answers.com
Who is next? When Google speaks everyone listens…and Wall St. Votes.
hay
tagged is the best thing around town