Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO

Eric Eldon | August 4th, 2008

Friendster, the formative social network of the modern web era that became a verb for rollercoaster failure and then took over large chunks of the Asian market, has some good news this evening.

It has raised $20 million and plucked Richard Kimber, Google’s regional managing director for South Asia, to be its new chief executive.

IDG Ventures led the round, with existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and Founders Fund participating.

While Friendster is the largest social network in countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries, it is — like most of its rivals — still figuring out how to be a big business. Kimber has experience making money for Google in South Asia. It’s not clear if that includes Orkut, Google’s social network that’s popular in India (and Brazil) or other social Google properties.

ComScore stats on Friendster, from June:

22.1 billion page views per month

215 minutes per visitor per month

37.1 million per month, 33 million of which were in Asia

[Photo via ABC.]

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  1. August 5th, 2008
    12:49 am

    www.anyhed.dk said:

    Investeringstilsagn på $20 millioner til Friendster…

    Friendster har fået investeringstilsagn på $20 millioner. I samme ombæring ansætter de tidligere Google-mand som CEO….

  2. August 5th, 2008
    1:14 am

    Friendster consigue 20M y a un Googler como CEO said:

    [...] una red social que últimamente ha conseguido bastante audiencia en el mercado asiático, ha recibido 20 millones de dólares en una ronda de financiación encabezada por IDG Ventures y en la que también participaron los inversores existentes Kleiner [...]

  3. August 5th, 2008
    2:27 am

    Blast from the Past | Bronte Media said:

    [...] The company is announcing another $20m in funding and a new CEO: Richard Kimber. [...]

  4. August 5th, 2008
    2:40 am

    Friendster’s rollercoaster ride just passed a booster of million said:

    [...] network Friendster is often called a “rollercoaster failure“. It was one of the first popular networks, attracted millions of users, and reached its peak [...]

  5. August 7th, 2008
    3:46 am

    Friendster Ventures Further Into Asia With More Buddies | TrendSniff said:

    [...] As online social networks get more congested, and competitive, Friendster has brought on board a key Google executive in a firm show of commitment to the Asia Pacific region. Meet their new Chief Executive, Australian Richard Kimber, who was formerly Google’s regional managing director for South Asia, according to VentureBeat. [...]

  6. August 15th, 2008
    7:57 pm

    ProfileSurfer.com » Blog Archive » Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO said:

    [...] Google’s regional managing director for South Asia, to be its new chief executive. Read More: Friendster: $20 Million addthis_url = [...]

  7. August 17th, 2008
    7:11 pm

    Пульс интернета с 4 августа по 17 августа - inVenture said:

    [...] интернете Friendster.com c 20 млрд. просмотром страниц в месяц получил 20 млн. долларов инвестиций и нового [...]