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July 11th, 2007

Redefining the grand entrance

Posted by: Kenneth Li
Tags: Uncategorized

How do you upstage massive egos? Internet startups attending Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley this week walked in with big deals.

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen’s (picture) social network business Ning landed a $44 million third round of financing brokered by Allen & Co., of course, and led by Legg Mason and others.

Here’s why, according to Marc’s blog: “Now we are substantially expanding our product plans — we have a long list of features and product capabilities we plan to add as fast as we possibly can - and, we want to staff up our ability to support our members and developers as they find ever more creative ways to use our platform.”

As for online-based TV ad company SpotRunner, they played the investor this time. SpotRunner and United Talent Agency have launched a ministudio, 60Frames Entertainment, to develop original programming for the Web and mobile devices, according to the New York Times. 60Frames landed $3.5 million from Tudor Investment Corp. and Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group. UTA and SpotRunner will own minority stakes. Sounds a lot like what former Disney CEO Michael Eisner has been doing with Vuguru, observes paidContent.org.

Paidcontent.org’s coverage here.

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