John Cook's Venture Blog - 3GUpload scores $20 million

location based services

3GUpload scores $20 million
3GUpload was started in Indiana by three college students from Purdue University and Indiana University. But the three-year-old provider of ringtones, games and other mobile content is hoping to grow to prominence as a Seattle company under the direction of longtime entrepreneur Bill Bryant.
The new goal: become a MySpace for mobile. While the new mobile community service is still a few weeks away from launch, 3GUpload is off to a pretty good start. It just announced $20 million in a first round of venture financing from VantagePoint Venture Partners -- the Silicon Valley firm that originally backed MySpace. Here's my story on 3GUpload, which plans to have a mobile music community up and running this Spring.
This is a hot space. The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday wrote about how MySpace and Facebook are moving aggressively into the mobile world, with reporters Li Yuan and Rebecca Buckman writing that the new mobile features "are a significant step forward for the social networking concept." The story also cited privacy and law enforcement concerns about some of the socially oriented location-based services.
In a separate story Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal discussed how companies such as AirPlay and LivePlanet are rolling out mobile games that require participants to use their cell phones to navigate through cities -- an idea that 3GUpload's Bryant also is interested in pursuing.
And Private Equity Week today has an overview of the activity in the mobile social networking arena.
Posted by John Cook at April 5, 2006 9:20 a.m.Category: Wireless
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