Gamesville.com Receives Over $14 Million in First Round of Financing From Premier Venture Firms
Financing Will be Used to Continue Industry Leadership in Online Game Shows and Database Marketing
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 1999-- Gamesville.com, Inc., the Web's leading game show site and database marketing company, today announced that it has received over $14 million in its first round of venture capital financing. Flatiron Partners was the lead investor and they were joined by SOFTBANK Technology Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and General Catalyst Internet Partners.
Gamesville.com is the Web's leading leisure and entertainment destination. Over 1.4 million registered people visit Gamesville.com to play the world's largest real time, massively multi-player game shows and win prizes for free. Named by Media Metrix in the Wall Street Journal as the ''stickiest'' site on the Internet, Gamesville.com has been chosen by brand name advertisers such as Virgin Atlantic, eBay, J.C. Penney, Rolling Stone Magazine and SmithKline Beecham to target specific demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles using the most accurate and diverse database on the Internet.
''The online game show space is red hot, and with this round of funding Gamesville.com will continue to lead this marketplace,'' said Steve Kane, CEO of Gamesville.com. ''We will use the funding to aggressively market Gamesville.com and rapidly expand our audience, client base and product offerings.''
As part of the investment, Gamesville.com has also added Managing Partner Jerry Colonna of Flatiron Partners, General Partner Charley Lax of SOFTBANK Technology Ventures and Managing Directors Brian Bedol and David Fialkow of General Catalyst Internet Partners to its Board of Directors. These individuals are joining David Bohnett, founder of GeoCities, who was previously announced to the board.
''SOFTBANK Technology Ventures is proud to partner with Gamesville.com,'' said Charley Lax, general partner at SOFTBANK Technology Ventures. ''Gamesville.com has a staggering amount of traffic on their Web site and our experience with companies who also have tremendous traffic on their sites, such as GeoCities and Yahoo!, enables us to help Gamesville.com maximize the value of their visitors and find new ways to entice people to join.''
''With the combination of a solid business model centered on database marketing and the wildly successful online gameshow concept, Gamesville.com will certainly be a fun company to watch,'' said Dan Nova, general partner at Highland Capital Partners. ''With our experience helping to build companies in this space--to date in 1999 seven of our Internet/E-Commerce firms have either gone public or have filed for an IPO--Highland is excited about working with such a compeling company.''
''Online game shows are poised to become the first application that truly integrates television with the Internet and Gamesville.com has positioned itself to be the leader in this integration,'' said Brian Bedol, managing director for General Catalyst Internet Partners. ''General Catalyst Internet Partners is excited to begin working with Gamesville.com and we are eager to begin exploring the possibilities for Gamesville.com in interactive TV.''
About Flatiron Partners
Flatiron Partners is one of the preeminent Internet-focused venture capital firms. An affiliate of Chase Capital Partners, the firm has invested in more than a dozen of the best known companies in the Internet including TheStreet.Com, GeoCities, Inc., Starmedia Networks Inc., Multex Inc. and IXL Inc. and is a recognized leader in Internet investing.
About SOFTBANK Technology Ventures
SOFTBANK Technology Ventures is the venture capital group affiliated with SOFTBANK Holdings Inc., an operating company of Japan's SOFTBANK Corporation. SOFTBANK Technology Ventures makes strategic investments in Internet infrastructure companies. SOFTBANK investments include: E*Trade Group, Inc., MessageMedia, Inc., GeoCities, Inc., TheStreet.com, and Yahoo! For more information, visit the company's Web site at sbvc.com.
About Highland Capital Partners
Founded in 1988, Highland Capital Partners is a leading venture capital firm focused on the success of its portfolio companies. As a trusted partner, Highland has participated in the formation and growth of leading communications, information technology and health care companies such as Altiga Networks, ANDA Networks, Ask Jeeves, Avid Technology, Be Free, Bolt Media, CheckFree, eToys, GenVec, Lycos, Mainspring, MapQuest, Medscape, NextCard, Quote.com, RoweCom, Send.com, Sybase, Topica, WebLine and Wit Capital. For additional information, visit the company's Web site at www.hcp.com or call 1-617-531-1500.
About General Catalyst Internet Partners
Founded in 1999 by a group of prominent marketing, entertainment and media executives, General Catalyst Internet Partners invests in emerging Internet content and commerce related companies. Along with driven and talented entrepreneurs, the principals of General Catalyst devote their operating expertise and specialized relationships to building leading companies of the future. To date, General Catalyst has made three investments.
About Gamesville.com, Inc.
Gamesville.com is the Web's leading leisure and entertainment destination. Over 1.4 million registered people visit Gamesville.com to play the world's largest real time, massively multi-player game shows and win prizes for free. Named by Media Metrix in the Wall Street Journal as the ''stickiest'' site on the Internet, Gamesville.com has been chosen by brand name advertisers such as Virgin Atlantic, eBay, J.C. Penney, Rolling Stone Magazine and SmithKline Beecham to target specific demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles using the most accurate and diverse database on the Internet. Popular game shows include The Bingo Zone®, Picturama(tm), AceyDeucey(tm), PopQuiz(tm), CatchUp CoverAll(tm) and SportsMadness(tm). To see what all the buzz is about, visit www.gamesville.com.
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NOTE TO EDITORS: In the company name E*TRADE, noted in this news release, there is an ''asterisk'' symbol between E and TRADE. This symbol may not appear properly in some systems.
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