Pinterest vc funding
Pinterest vc funding – Pinterest is the latest in social networking thats catching on.For people who haven’t used it yet,it can loosely be described as a bookmarking service thatbuses a virtual pin board to display,pictures and links,sharing it with community users with the same taste.The way we see it,looks like an online visual catalog of Sears from the 50s, a window shopping website for home makers or a use generated and verified image search engine. No wonder 70% of users are women.Some of the most pinned links and images are of dresses, recipes,art,places and fashion ornate.
Pinterest vc funding
Just like any other startup,founders Ben Silberman,Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra moved to Palo Alto to realize their dream.In march 2010 it was launched in Beta to small user group that expanded by invitation only.By December 2011 unique monthly visitors touched 11 million, and according to Techcrunch, that’s the fastest any standalone website has gotten to double digit millions.
As soon as Pinterest saw signs of an exponential traffic curve,they sought venture capital and investors for primary rounds of funding.So far,there has been two rounds of major funding.
As soon as Founder Evan Sharp conceptualized the idea of and got a working prototype of the site up,he got an initial angel funding of
January 2011-The first round of funding raised an amount of $500,000 by 10 Angel and Seed investors that include-
Ron Conway,SV Angel
Micheal Birch,Bebo
Max Levchin-CEO,Slide
Shana Fisher-High Line Ventures
Kevin Hartz-CEO,Eventbrite
For the next round of funding,most Venture Capitalists prefer that they deal with more than “one” founder.Ben Silbermann and Paul Sciara were then taken in as co founders for the Series A round of funding.
May 2011-An initial modest influx of $10 million from Bessemer Venture Partners was the first big investment in Pinterest vc funding that gave the company an evaluation of $40 million. Jeremy Levine joins the board along with VP of Bessmer Sarah Tavel as an investor.
October 2011-Ben Horowitz led Horowitz-Andreessen pumps in $27.5 million in one of the most talked about funding rounds in silicon valley.Jeff Jordan joins the board.It is valued now at $200 million.
Revenue Model
So whats so appealing about Pinterest?Arent the number male internet users triple the number of women?We always thought cyberspace was a male bastion,but it is clearly the women’s stronghold.For long have the money makers tried to cash in on the x chromosome in tech businesses.Even Hollywood for that matter, always made box office blockbusters primarily geared towards a male audience,but the biggest franchises in the last 5 years have been Harry Potter and Twilight,both female driven fantasy frenzies.
The first and most stable revenue model is a tried and tested web marketing technique called affiliate marketing.The affiliate company used by Pinterest goes by the name of Skimlinks. Skimlinks is a revenue share model that operates on behalf of 27 affiliate networks and 17,000 merchants.When images and links are “pinned” on the website,some of them have affiliate links redirecting them to the affiliate merchant website.If a sale is made through this affiliate link then Skimlinks gives the publisher, a whopping 25% commission on the sale amount.