This morning Vringo announced that they've scored $12 million in series B investment from Warburg Pincus. I've personally been skeptical of video ringtones. It seemed a bit like screen savers for the PC — popular but easily duplicated. Clearly Jon Medved and his team are executing, raising money, proving me wrong and that the old saw that traction attracts capital is as true as ever.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hmmm… I don't believe that I said that they had a win because they had a series B, Dean. I believe I said that they had raised money because they had demonstrated the ability to execute and had traction. Minor quibble, I guess, because everything you've said is true.
Alec, just because someone raised some money doesn’t make it a good business (or a good business plan).
A long time ago I came to the realisation that the money jocks are too stupid to know what does and doesn’t make financial sense.
As such it’s my obligation to the IT community to only represent clients whose projects will not only get funded (as you can pretty much get anything funded if you spin it the right way) but projects that are actually going to make a return for it’s investors.
If all you are looking to do is raise funding then;
1/ You’ll make a buck
but
2/ You wont be doing the IT community any good in the long run.
Personally i believe Video Ringtones do make financial sense – I just didn’t like the way you posed the post that because they made “series B” they had a win. Clearly there is a lot of ‘execution’ between here and a successful business model.
Regards,
Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net