Thursday, December 11, 2008

Spark helps lead $4.5M second round for Tumblr

By Mass High Tech staff

Boston-based venture capital firm Spark Capital co-led the latest funding round for social networking and online publishing platform company Tumblr. Spark and Union Square Ventures were the leads in the $4.5 million Series B financing of New York-based Tumblr.

Tumblr has added John Maloney as president in conjunction with the new funding. Maloney most recently was director of audience development for the lifestyle group at CNET Networks following its purchase in 2006 of UrbanBaby.com, the company he founded in 1998.

In addition to the funding, Tumblr reports that AOL/ Time Warner veteran and current social media investor John Borthwick will join Tumblr’s board of directors. That board also includes David Karp, Tumblr’s founder; Brad Burnham, general partner of Union Square Ventures; Bijan Sabet, partner at Spark Capital; Fred Seibert, who was the first creative director at MTV Networks and former president of Hanna-Barbera.

Officials at Tumblr say the funding will allow it to grow the business beyond what it calls its “tremendous first year momentum.” Tumblr reaches more than 15 million monthly unique visitors through more than 500,000 publishers, according to the company. Tumblr says it plans to launch a paid premium service as the company’s first revenue generation model in the first quarter or 2009.

In September, Spark Capital led a new $13 million round of investment in California-based online video advertising platform developer Adap.tv Inc. Spark focuses on the intersection of media, entertainment and technology, and counts Twitter, BuzzWire and SendMe as portfolio companies.