Updated
Zvents, which lets people search for events in their neighborhood, has raised $7 million in a first round of funding led by VantagePoint Venture Partners.
That is a very large sum of money, and it raises questions about the company’s business model. Such a large round makes it more difficult for Zvents to return a profit to investors. This suggests Zvents is swinging for the fences — it will have to become all pervasive. VantagePoint was a backer of MySpace, so it has expectations.
Menlo Park’s Zvents is striking partnerships with news organizations around the country, including with the Mercury News, Miami Herald and Contra Costa Times and Denver Post. Zvents gets a share of the advertising revenue that runs beside the event listings, and newspapers get access to Zvents’ Ajax-based easy-to-use interface. Beside its listings, Zvents pulls in other things like neighboring bars and restaurants through Google maps (Here is the SF Web 2.0 conference listing, for example), making it useful for users. However, there are competing events sites, such as Eventful, and other sites like Topix.net, which is also striking local partnership deals with news groups and hoping to profile events.
Zvents launched at last year’s Web 2.0 conference. Then, chief executive Ethan Stock said he would raise venture capital this year; he has slipped in just before the bell. He says the cash is justified: $10 billion in advertising still needs to move online, news organizations are having to upgrade their offerings to grab that advertising, and Zvents is right smack in the middle of that, he said. Topix.net raised even more cash ($15M announced yesterday), a bundle that is going to be difficult to make a good return on (although in Topix’s case, the investment has become more strategic, because investors are the news organizations themselves).
Here’s our write up of the partnership with the Mercury News.
Previous seed investors Red Rock Ventures and NetService Ventures Group participated. The funding will be used to expand Zvents’ geographic coverage across the U.S., the company said. It is about to sign up Boston.com, and an organization in Los Angeles, Stock said.
Tags: co:Zvents, inv:NetService-Ventures-Group, inv:Red-Rock-Ventures, inv:VantagePoint-Venture-Partners12 Comments
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carl said:
would love to see the business plan/exit strategy …
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Stu Phillips said:
Couldn’t agree more Matt - this really sets the bar for the exit.
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Michael Bazeley said:
Can’t speak to the valuation issue, but there really isn’t a Zvents competitor out there right now with a comparable breadth of listings, functionality and management team smarts.
Michael Bazeley
Senior Web Editor
Mercury News -
Chris Law said:
Matt - I think that you’re missing the point here on what Zvents is all about.
By getting distribution partners with all the major local media outlets they end up with very large number of eyeballs that they can monetize against.
Zvents is certainly swinging for the fences but they’ve got a real shot at it.
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Chris Law said:
Matt, I think that you’re missing the point here on what Zvents is all about.
By getting distribution partners with all the major local media outlets they end up with very large number of eyeballs that they can monetize against.
Zvents is certainly swinging for the fences but they’ve got a real shot at it.
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Peter Cranstone said:
Here’s something fascinating…
Fire up your favorite browser and go to http://www.zvents.com and see “where” it finds you i.e your location.
Then fire up a mobile browser and do exactly the same thing. The desktop found me in Littleton CO - the mobile browser found me in NJ.
Local is exactly that - local. It probably doesn’t matter on a desktop, but if I hop on a plane, fly somewhere and then want to use Zvents it doesn’t know where I am. Now of course you could type the data in by hand, however on a mobile device that’s not always practical, especially if you don’t know “exactly” where you are.
What would be cool if Zvents could support real time GPS data. Now you could really be local. Nothing like those local ads to go with your local location.
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Deva Hazarika said:
Matt,
What are your thoughts on http://www.evdb.com and http://www.eventful.org? Feels like a lot of well-funded players all trying to build critical mass here.
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Deva Hazarika said:
Oops, I meant http://www.upcoming.org for the second one.
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bala said:
Events is very big market, but there are many players with different strategies, and market dynamics will not change foreseeable future.
We started Eventbee in 2003, much before anyone thought about event social networking concept. Having this background, I would say 7M is too much if they are focused on developing some niche features, and it is too little if they think they are taking on entire events market.
Watch out for Eventbee 2.0 (coming out in few weeks) with clear revenue model (infact we already have revenue model)
Bala, President, Eventbee
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sohbet said:
thanks :)
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chat said:
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4 Trackbacks
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Zevents gets $7 million « Technically Speaking said:
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HipMojo.com - Main Street Meets Madison Avenue, Wall Street and Silicon Valley » Bubble 2.0 vs. Bubble Pockets; 4 Reasons We’re Not in a Bubble said:
[...] I don’t like to say anything negative about others, but yesterday I read than Zvents, an events planning company, got $7 million in funding. At face value, that is absurd. Then again, there’s a lot under the hood that gets VCs excited: [...]