Roundup: Brin backs Parkinson’s study, iPhone gets shakable ads, and more
Google co-founder backs major Parkinson’s study – Sergey Brin says he plans to contribute money and DNA to a study run by his wife Anne Wojcicki’s startup 23andMe.
Dockers introduces shakable iPhone ad — Users can shake their iPhones to make urban street dancer Dufon perform his moves. The ad was created by mobile ad company Medialets.
Twofish launches analytics platform for social games — The company’s Elements platform will help social game and virtual world developers understand and make… Continue Reading
Thanks for coming to the VentureBeat party
VentureBeat threw a party last night to celebrate the launch our new digital media blog. (In truth, the blog is still a glorified tab on our main site, but we’re headed soon to a more separate offering.)
Held at the Ambassador club in San Francisco, hundreds of movers and shakers in digital media arena showed up — entrepreneurs, PR folks, even Warriors basketball star Baron Davis (below), an investor in IBeatYou (which also had an announcement… Continue Reading
Cox Enterprises buys ad network builder Adify for $300M
updated after reaching CEO Russ Fradin and Cox Chief Financial Officer John Dyer
Adify, whose software helps companies build their own advertising networks, has been acquired by media company Cox Enterprises for $300 million, according to various sources.
We’ve since confirmed the acquisition with CEO Russ Fradin (see his own blog post here).
The San Bruno, Calif. startup had raised around $27 million in total funding, with backers including U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock Associates, GE Commercial Finance, NBC… Continue Reading
Gay Ad Network launches
[Update: See below. This is not owned by Adify, as we'd originally implied]
Adify, an online company that is building ad networks for specific niches, has just announced its latest: the Gay Ad Network.
Adify, a Belmont, Calif. start-up which launched last year, and which got $19 million in financing a few months ago (see our coverage) is a small player relative to the other big ad networks.
This is a smart move, though. We’re in… Continue Reading
Roundup: FunnyOrDie, StumbleUpon sale?, Google’s latest and more
Latest action:
VC firm Sequoia Capital backs Will Ferrell and Adam McKay comedy video site — Called FunnyOrDie.com, the site features a two-minute clip that won a reported 1.5 million page views in less than a week.
StumbleUpon to be acquired? — Several folks (Techcrunch/GigaOm) are reporting that San Francisco social Web site StumbleUpon is in talks to being acquired by AOL, Google or eBay, for a rumored $40 million to $75 million. That’s not very high for… Continue Reading
Ad network Adify gets $19M to build out vertical ad network model
Adify, the Belmont, Calif. company offering an online advertising network product that charges a lower fee to publishers, said it has raised $19 million in a second round of financing today.
That’s a lot of cash, but is probably necessary to keep Adify in the running, now that the industry is filled with all sorts of competitors.
The round was led by US Venture Partners, and includes previous investor Venrock Associates, and a strategic financing from GE… Continue Reading