Free Newsletter
VantagePoint Venture Partners shutters 3Guppies
Venture capital firm VantagePoint Venture Partners has reportedly pulled the plug on mobile social networking service provider 3Guppies. According to VentureBeat, VantagePoint--which assumed ownership of 3Guppies (formerly Mixxer) in a $20 million deal combining mobile social networking firm MoPhone and ringtone provider 3Guploads--made the decision to cut its losses after 3Guppies CEO John Dearborn and senior management execs failed to deliver metrics compelling enough to translate to a second round of financing. VantagePoint let go the 3Guppies staff last week, but will continue paying their salaries through the end of the month. VantagePoint explained the shutdown thusly: "It just was not a good idea to blast to the end of the runway and crash, but to taxi off gracefully."
For more on 3Guppies' demise:
- read this VentureBeat article
Related article:
3Guppies debuts photo sharing app for Facebook
Comments
Posted by William Volk | December 21, 2007 - 1:01pm
I am very sorry to hear about the layoffs etc.
This is why, as difficult as it has been, having a model centered on a social marketplace ... where the members are posting content for sale to mobile consumers, always made more sense to us than a 'eyeballs' play.
That's what our social marketplace http://MyNuMo.com does, and we did it without VC investment. MyNuMo.com is a social community that provides the tools to enable independent creators to upload and sell their mobile content (ringtones, wallpapers, and videos) from any website. We took the time (over a year) to get the deals to allow for carrier billing and delivery. People expect to buy mobile content and have it charged to their phone bill.
This is part of our vision to be The Social Entertainment Company, which now includes a leadership position in iPhone entertainment.
William Volk
CEO, MyNuMo
Click here to get the FierceMobileContent email newsletter for FREE!
Comments (1) | Post a comment