Ripl, another college-based social network, raises $4.25 million

August 28, 2007 | Eric Eldon

ripl.pngRipl is a social networking startup started by former Classmates.com executive Bill Messing and others, trying to take on Facebook in its home turf: college campuses. It has raised a small series B round of $4.5 million from angel investors, according to PEHub’s read of a regulatory filing.

The Seattle-based site launched last November. Then, Messing told Seattle PI’s John Cook his plan for success:

I have spent a lot of time in the trenches understanding optimization algorithms and best practices and how we will actually ratchet up the response as we go along. And frankly, I talk to people in other startups and I hear things that raise the hackles on the back of my neck.

We haven’t had the chance to take a look for ourselves, as users are currently restricted to the University of Washington and the University of Central Florida.

Ripl is ranked #89 in Sampa’s Seattle 2.0 index of area startups, based on its low Alexa-calculated traffic.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He writes and edits stories about lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a now-failed startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers.