Former MySpace CMO Shawn Gold is starting up a new social media business dubbed Cocodot, which is poised for launch next September. The current website for the venture doesn’t reveal much, and all we know at this point about Cocodot is that it will provide a “style-driven communication and guest management platform for people and brands to create celebrations”.
We didn’t get that either, but apparently Gold is close to announcing several alliances with some of America’s biggest consumer brands pre-launch, so our expectations are on the high side. And investors are interested, too. The startup has just closed its first round of financing, securing seed funding from investors like Anthem Venture Partners and William Morris’ Mail Room Fund. The amount raised was just south of $1 million.
For your reference: Gold was the former President of Intermix Media, the company that used to be eUniverse and owned the MySpace website before it was sold to News Corp. for a reported $670 million. He was also President of Weblogs Inc, which was acquired by AOL for $25 million back in 2005.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on Cocodot for the foreseeable future.
Seems Intriguing.
South of $1MM ? Amazing. The VC implosion continues, this type of startup 18 months ago could have raised multi-millions on a huge double-digit pre-money.
WORST company name EVER.
I LOVE THE NAME– BETTER THAN Polkadot
I love the name—————better than
Polkadot
Gold:
What illegal drugs were you allegedly taking when you came up with this impossibly stupid name?
Have you considered jumping off a building?
Seems to me to be a vERY— memorable name. I can just imagine what you said about GOOGLE
Sounds like it would be either an Evite clone/competitor or it’s just trying to move in on Facebook’s “Event” space. Either way, not remotely excited.
Not an intelligent comment. Maybe they can change the name to Orgasm in order to get you excited?
Evite was my first thought as well. And they are probably being sneaky so they don’t get sued out of existence before birth, as Evite is known to do.
Its bound to be good. Shawn Gold is a genius.
Looking forward to see what Cocodot looks like.
A “portal”, if these were Web1 days, for event management (Launches, lunches, weddings, …) with the business model around commissions on sales of endorsed products and services?
Looking forwards,
Sounds like it’s either an Evite clone or it’s trying to move into the Facebook-Event space. Either way, not interested.
Cute, but not interested
Oh darn, I thought you would be interested——–President Obama and his wife have invested in Cocodot (not true)
More than cute———very exciting in a boring world
can we refer to “stealth” startups as simply “startups”, and just point out when they’re “non-stealth”?
So they’ve announced they’ve got some money & an exec who used to work for a social networking site, but they’ve failed to mentioned a product or a business plan.
Well I’m optimistic…
Steven— you have heard the old axiom—- if we told you the plan we’d have to to buy you lunch
They are not a company until they have an actual product.
What the hell is stealth? You’re a business, not a ninja.
Stealth is actually a fighter bomber——as in stealth technology——–In shawn’s case, they won’t see him coming until its too late to say no
I was over at Shawn’s a few weeks ago and saw the alpha. Very well thought out, very impressive. Add in his track record and it’s a no-brainer investment for a VC
gold knows what he’s doing. i’m excited for this.
Very Funny – all the knee jerk critiques. I’m pretty sure there were many people who thought the Beatles was a stupid name for a music group. I’ve seen some of the alpha as well and it’s very nicely done. It has elements of FB and eVite but it’s a new beast. Good luck to those guys.
Brilliant… piggy backing off of social networking and making it a real experience for real people who actually know each other. It’s about time… can’t wait for this to launch…
In the past few years we have seen Social Networking lead the way for communications, business, and even politics… This site is leading the race for data portability. Way to go!!!… I can’t wait to see this one blow up…
test
So it’s for social parties?
Wow ..just south of $1 million . gonna to see Cocodot soon.
Love the tag line “Create + Celebrate”. Gold is a highly creative/thoughtful guy and bound to succeed.
Finally!!! A tasteful solution to sending out a paperless card/invitation. I couldn’t and wouldn’t use any of the others before. Can’t wait. Shawn is a genius and Amy is a visionary! I’m certain it will be extremely valuable for individuals and corporations wanting utilize a fantastic paperless option with great style and ease!
GO COCODOT. And by the way, I love the name…VERY catchy! (true about Google – what kind of word was that – now it’s become a verb)!
Cocodot me!
JR
i’m pretty sure that he had left intermix before they incubated myspace, in fact i think he left the industry completely and was writing a children’s book or something. the vcs they love the myspace people so maybe they glossed over this
I need this in my life and business right now! I had heard that the launch date was July…