Video phones popular in sci-fi and speculations about the future may finally be taking off via mobile
You can get a feel for what’s hot in the digital space from the large funding rounds two firms disclosed today.
Remember the video phones once so common in science fiction that never took-off in real life? Their mobile equivalent is doing much better.
Tango, a Palo Alto, CA-based mobile video calling service, has closed a $40 million Series C round of funding with investment that included new investors Qualcomm Incorporated, acting through its venture arm, Qualcomm Ventures, and Access Industries Inc., the industrial holding company founded by Len Blavatnik. The financing brings the company’s total funding close to $100 million.
This round also saw additional investment from members of co-founder Eric Setton’s family who have been supporters of the company since the early days. Other prominent Tango investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Michael Birch, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Bill Hambrecht.
Tango has seen record growth and usage in the last few months. The number of daily calls has doubled in the past four months and daily registrations have doubled since July 2011. In just 18 months, 45 million people have started using Tango, over 10 percent of them use Tango every day, and 44 percent are active.
BranchOut trees $25M fore Facebook professional networking app
San Francisco-based BranchOut, the largest professional networking application on Facebook, has surpassed 25 million registered users, adding more than three new registered users every second.
The continued adoption of BranchOut by global users spurred another round of funding, the company says, as it closed $25 million in Series C financing led by Mayfield Fund. Previous investors Accel, Norwest Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures also participated in the round. This financing brings BranchOut’s total funding to $49 million.
BranchOut’s 25 million registered users can leverage their network connections of more than 400 million professional profiles to help them find jobs, recruit talent, and open doors to new opportunities.
Much of BranchOut’s growth has come from its emerging mobile user base. Since adding the ability to connect with Facebook friends from its mobile application in February, 40 percent of its new users now join from mobile devices. BranchOut is now accessible via Android smartphones, Apple iOS devices, and tablets.
With an average of nearly two million new registered users joining weekly since February, BranchOut is also growing rapidly from increased international adoption. Approximately 50 percent of all new users join from countries outside of the U.S. — primarily in the U.K., Europe, Australia, Canada, and India — to utilize both their personal and professional relationships on a single network.
The Series C funding will allow BranchOut to expand its San Francisco-based team of 45 people.
