VentureBeat

WooMe, a video speed-dating site whose claim to fame is a speedy, no-frills interface and the ability to attract people who would never touch a traditional dating site (it calls itself an “introductions platform”), has raised a fresh round of capital to continue expanding.

NewTeeVee had the scoop on the funding news, however its report said the company was valued at $30 million after the money, and had a deal with MTV, both of which WooMe representative called “inaccurate”. WooMe says its post-valuation is significantly higher, at $41 million, and that there’s no deal at all with MTV.

By all appearances, WooMe has been growing rapidly. Three months after the site launched, co-founder Stephen Stokols told me that the site was running about 1,000 video sessions between users (read our past coverage for more on how WooMe works). Today, the company is claiming 15,000 sessions each day, with 350,000 registered users. It also says the average amount of time active users spend on the site is doubling each month.

One does get the impression, though, that WooMe hasn’t grown quite as quickly as its founders hoped. One whisper I’ve heard is that WooMe attracts new users easily, but has had trouble user retention, despite some high-profile media appearances, including the BBC and Fox’s Morning Show.

An ongoing “bridge round” that saw its initial funding extended to $7.5 million from $1.9 million may have indicated the site had trouble convincing investors it’s really rocket-fueled (bridge rounds are sometimes made on less favorable terms, though we don’t know the details here). But this is just speculation on my part. With the significant valuation of this round, it appears that any worries have probably been set aside, for now. [update: Stokols says the bridge round raised in December was actually done because the numbers were well beyond what was expected.]

The $12.5 million round was led by Index Ventures, with existing investors Atomico and Mangrove Capital Partners participating. The round has also been left open, with about $500,000 left to raise for “strategic angels” who may come in. WooMe has its offices split between San Francisco, Los Angeles and London.

1. Google buying contact organizer Plaxo?
2. Bebo raising new round of capital at $1B+ value?
3. Facebook en espanol
4. Chip maker to show off Google phone Monday
5. Surprise! Record industry wants filtering on your PC
6. Apple splashing production orders due to low demand
7. U. of Wisconsin sues Intel for Core 2 Duo infringement
8. BBC to launch download of iPlayer sometime this year
9. OpenID interesting concept, but will anyone use it?
10. Real Goods Solar files for $57M IPO
11. WooMe raises $3M round for video speed-dating

Google buying contact organizer Plaxo? — That’s the latest rumor (courtesy of Wired), but there’s been plenty of rumors about Plaxo lately, that suggests its investors are looking for a way to sell. We reported earlier a rumor that Facebook was in talks to buy Plaxo. Dan Primack says Google may be interested, but that there are other suitors involved too.

Speaking of rumors, Bebo may be raising a new round of capital — Kara Swisher, of AllThingsD, blasts Techcrunch for running a rumor that Google or News Corp.’s MySpace may be interested in buying social networking company Bebo for $1 billion or more, blaming the site for not doing its reporting. Instead, she claims, Bebo may get an investment from those two sources, or from any on a long list of other strategic or institutional investors. Yahoo and Microsoft, she adds, had also floated possibly buying the whole company. The $1 billion-plus number comes from the valuation the company would get for the investment round. Bebo has about 21 million unique visitors a month.

Facebook en espanol — Facebook has been translated into Spanish for its 2.8 million active users in Latin America and Spain. French and German translations are expected in the coming weeks.

British chip maker ARM to show off version of the Google phone on Monday — Details here.

Surprise! Record industry chief wants users to install copyright filtering software on their PCs — Details.

Apple splashing production orders due to low demand — First it was iPods and iPhones, and now notebooks too.

University of Wisconsin sues Intel for patent infringement for its Core 2 duo — Details here.

BBC will launch download version of its iPlayer sometime this year — The iPlayer is a “catch-up” online TV service.

OpenID is interesting in concept, but will anyone really use it? — Microsoft, Google, Verisign, IBM have decided to support something called OpenID, which is a service that lets people use same login information for multiple sites. But as Techcrunch notes, it’s not clear whether any of the latest adherents have agreed to be a “relying party” (allowing users with third party OpenIDs to log in to their sites). So far, they’ve merely pledged to be OpenID “compatible,” which means they really want to be an ID “issuer” so that they “own” the user.

Real Goods Solar files for $57M IPO — The company said it is the largest installer of grid-connected solar panels in California. The Broomfield, Colorado company is a subsidiary of environmental lifestyle company Gaiam.

WooMe raises $3M round for video speed-dating — WooMe, an online video platform for meeting potential dates (or finding roommates, travel companions, and so forth) has raised an additional $3 million extension to its first round of $1.9 million. We’ve covered the company pretty extensively, here and here. Mangrove Capital led, Atomico Investments participated, and individual investors Oliver Jung and Klaus Hommels (of Balderton Capital) also jumped in.

The much-anticipated dating and meeting site WooMe is launching to the public today, with some new features and plans. We first wrote about the company during its alpha launch, at the TechCrunch40 conference.

Dating is both one of the more challenging and more lucrative niches on the internet. From eHarmony to HotorNot, iminlikewithyou to Match.com, sites have struggled to overcome the social stigma of internet dating and the difficulty of getting people to show off their personalities online — without making them work too much at it.

WooMe’s angle is speed dating. Its real-time, minute-long video meetings let users see and talk to each other immediately, allowing the site to get away with only asking for skeletal user profiles and avoid the time-consuming profile-building of other sites.

However, WooMe would prefer to slip around the stigma of the “dating” label entirely by encouraging non-dating uses. CEO Stephen Sokols told us that initial users have been using the platform to meet potential traveling or carpooling companions.

The site will also allow “Any to Any” meeting sessions, in which there are no restrictions on the sexes of the participants; even before the feature was in, we spotted a few business networking sessions taking place on the alpha version of the site. For those who are actually interested in dating, the sessions are quick and easy, and end with a simple yes or no choice of whether they’re interested in a particular person.

Also recently added are a “Flake-o-meter” to point out users who tend to sign up but not show for sessions, a voice-only option, and the ability to invite others to sessions through Facebook. But the really neat new feature of WooMe centers around its plan for ads.

When we first talked to the founders of WooMe, they were still deciding how to handle monetizing the site, aside from a $1 charge required for users interested in each other to gain the ability to contact each other directly (something users will be able to get around easily enough, by simply opening a new session and telling each other their email addresses).

They’ve decided to keep the site clean, not placing any display ads. However, WooMe will selectively slip video advertisements into sessions that have extra room. For example, if a session is set up for five men and five women, and only four women sign up, the extra minute-long slot will be filled by a video ad. (If less than three women sign on, the session will be canceled.)

However, if you decide that the ad is annoying, you can reject it — just like any of the other participants in the session. Alternatively, if it was a good ad, you can Woo it and see similar ones next time there’s an open slot.

That will provide some built-in targeting, and also give advertisers some valuable feedback on whether their ads are making an impression, or simply irritating people.

Sokols says that WooMe is already in discussions with one of the top three dating sites in the US to offer its video sessions as an add-on; later, it may offer a white-label version to other companies that have a use for it (for example, a recruiting firm that wants to interview batches of candidates).

Overall, WooMe has a better design and more innovative features than its only competitor, SpeedDate.com, which has the sickly-sweet look of an 80’s video dating service. We think it’s likely to succeed — how about you? The site is open to all registrations today.

This just in: The winner of the Techcrunch40 event is Mint, the personal finance company (see our coverage here).

Meanwhile, below is the last batch of Techcrunch companies, from Tuesday’s afternoon session. After hitting VentureBeat readers with 40 start-ups over the past two days, we’re going to try our best fast on Web 2.0 for at least a day. Frankly, this latest batch wasn’t that impressive. Here’s the ranking: WooMe, Zivity, mEgo, Wixi, Xtr3D, Metaplace, Flowplay, Broadclip and Kaltura.

WooMe, speedating through live video online — We reviewed the company here. Lots of dating sites exist, but its pushing the envelope somewhat, and making dating extremely cheap. However, other big brands are likely to enter the market if it proves successful.

Zivity , adult network for model photography – This is the adult company VentureBeat first wrote about last month. It’s promise is to let models and photographers of the models get paid for their work, by making members pay a dollar for each vote they make on best models. Eight cents gets split between the model and photographer, and 20 cents goes to Zivity. You get five free votes, and then have to pay if you want more.

mEgo, a character-based user interface — Simply put, a mEgo is a cutesy avatar that can be posted on a social network and used as a content aggregator. Users build a unique character on the mEgo site, connect in other accounts that they want access through it — Flickr or Facebook, for instance — and then post it on their profiles around the internet. Anyone who clicks on the mEgo can then access content from all the sites it’s linked through to. The problem is that there’s a hundred other cross-platform aggregators already present or in the works, bringing the noise level in the space to a dull roar. And the question always remains the same: Why use one over another? With mEgo, at least, there’s an answer: It’s cute, and kitschy. The combination may be enough to win some hearts and minds, if only from the teenaged set.

Wixi — Simple concept: If you’ve got content on your computer that you want to share with someone, but you don’t want to go to the trouble of file transfers, you can drag and drop the files from your desktop to your Wixi site. Whether it’s music, movies or some other sort of content, your friends can then go and enjoy it through the Wixi Universal Flash Player. This brings up some questions on copyright: How long will it be until people use their sites to share their copy of, say, the newest Disney movie? And will it be different enough from competitors like Pando, Docstoc and others, for it to get above the noise? The company is based in France.

Xtr3D, a lot of hand-waving — No, really, it is. Xtr3D is a 3D human-machine interface, which is a fancy way of saying that you can move things on your screen by making specific gestures with your hands. The Nintendo Wii does this with a long motion-sensitive paddle that you move around. Xtr3D, instead, tracks your movements through a camera mounted on the computer screen. During the presentation, the company’s founder used the program to manipulate a Google Earth map, rotating and zooming in and out. While the demonstration was interesting, the program didn’t seem to be as fast at responding to the gestures as it would be to mouse clicks. Additionally, his gestures obviously had to be very clear and slow enough for the computer to recognize. Without taking away from the accomplishment of the company, it seems obvious that the software isn’t mature; we’ll have to wait a bit longer, it seems for a Minority Report-style computer. In fact, it reminds us of a near-identical company, Softkinetic, which we wrote about a year ago, and which we haven’t heard much about since. Xtr3D couldn’t tell us clearly how it was different from Softkinetic (Update: This appears to be our misunderstanding. The company has since explained that Xtr3D uses only software and a single camera, while Softkinetic requires infrared as well. Xtr3D argues this makes it less expensive.) The company is positioning the software as a platform for developers, with an emphasis on gaming.

Metaplace, an open standards virtual world, that lets users mashup games and other activities — It’s a small download, 30k. We reviewed it separately here. Again, it enters a very crowded field, and questions remain about business model.

Flowplay , yet another avatar virtual world – This site lets you build a 3D avatar, and do familiar things such as play games and win points so that you can build out your wardrobe. It renders in Flash. It wants to build a large number of settings for avatars (apartments, lounges), like Doppelganger’s vSide (our coverage), except no downloading. You can connect and chat with friends. The site looks clean, however, we’ve been there, done that. There are way too many avatar-game sites now, and this one doesn’t break the “originality” threshold. We don’t see much here to stop people going to MSN or Miniclip to play games. Flowplay has raised $500K on a bridge note from Ambient Sound Investments.

Broadclip, a system for sharing music online — The presentation consisted of someone coming on stage, saying hello, and turning on a video for everyone to watch. All of which might have been fine, had the presentation been good, or particularly informative. Broadclip’s “MediaCatcher” software aggregates music for its users through a recommendation engine. Once found, the music can be played anytime. MediaCatcher works independently, on a mobile device or through platforms like Facebook. Despite some attractive features, the company didn’t seem unique or impressive; perhaps it was the grandiose claim of being the “Web 3.0″ solution for music. Napoleon complex, anyone?

Kaltura, letting you collaborate with video – This is an also-ran. This company’s slogan is “YouTube meets the Wiki.” Instead of sharing text, you’re sharing video. Take an example of a music band. The band can go to Kaltura, create a Web site, record an introduction video, and then others can upload their own content, and then mix it all up in a big video mashup. We’ve seen scores of iterations of this, and the only thing surprising about Kaltura is that it has 20 employees working for it, and has $2 million in venture backing from Avalon Partners. It is based in Tel Aviv and Manhattan.

(This post was co-written with Chris Morrison.)

If you had a minute to speak with someone over a live video connection, could you decide whether you would date them? That’s the question for WooMe, a startup aiming to bring the world of speed dating online.

It launches a testing version today, but will open for all in a couple of months.

Unlike most other dating sites, users don’t have to answer dozens of questions or fill out an application form. Nor will they be forced to go through the grueling process of reading other user’s rambling essays.

Instead, speed dating sessions with up to 16 participants, eight of each sex, will be the way WooMe users gauge their interest. The sessions are intended to run in live audio-video, although only audio can be selected; participants never type to one another, although they can classify them with tags for future reference. The founders say hearing a prospective date’s voice is far more revealing than often realized.

No other dating startup we know of has based their company on speed dating. WooMe’s gamble is based partly on the lack of speed dating online, partly on the failure of other models of online dating, despite the sizable rewards awaiting successful companies. (The company says the market could reach $10 billion, but that’s clearly a stretch).

The years since the dotcom bust have seen dozens of dating startups appear and disappear; Match.com, once considered a thriving dating community, lacks hipness. Some sites like eHarmony, typically catering to older individuals, are somewhat successful. But no company has yet claimed the holy grail: Online dating that everyone uses.

On the other hand, this technology isn’t particularly defensible. There’s nothing stopping a more popular brand (Match.com) from duplicating it; except, that is, economics.

WooMe is dirt cheap. After a conversation, a guy (more often) can say that he likes a girl. If the girl says she likes him too, the guy can pay $1 to get the girl’s contact details. There’s no way Match.com will want to match this low price.

The site is not monetizing through ads, another refreshing difference from some of the more recent dating sites.

Like another recent startup, iminlikewithyou, WooMe aims to satisfy the short attention span of the younger generation. The focus is on fun, fast interactions. Unlike iminlikewithyou, WooMe thinks its service can result in real dates for its members, because it will give a much better view of who the other person really is, despite the speed of sessions.As a demo of his service, WooMe CEO Stephen Stokols showed me how users could start speed-dating sessions based on themes of their own devising; his example was called “The Faces of TechCrunch.” WooMe is present at the TechCrunch40 conference today, undergoing their alpha launch for an initial user base of 1000.

Facebook users can invite each other to Woome sessions.

One problem haunting dating sites, and which may also challenge this one: Not enough desirable women, and a glut of socially challenged men.

The WooMe team believes that their service will provide just enough depth of interaction to help desirable women (and, to be fair, men) quickly weed out the people they don’t want. The hosts of sessions will also be able to be selective as to who enters.

The platform offers possibilities beyond dating, as well. Sokols mentioned interviews for jobs or potential roommates as good uses for WooMe.

WooMe has taken on $1.9 million in funding from investors including Joost founder Niklas Zennström, through his Atomico investment fund.