Social media funding: Color, a new social network, lands mega funding

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Social media funding: Color, a new social network, lands mega funding

Submitted by Social Media Influence on March 30, 2011 – 1:29 pmOne Comment

Color
Location: Palo Alto
Founded: 2011
Sector: Social network/apps

Description: Color is a new (launched March 23) photo-sharing social network for the smartphone crowd. The network is novel in that it has no privacy settings or friending capabilities, but instead organizes and presents user photos based on relevancy, location and interests.

Big Wins: Color was recently founded by former CEO Bill Nguyen of Lala, the online music sharing community purchased by Apple in 2009. Over the last eight months, Color has raised $41 million in initial funding from Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. Along the way, it acquired the memorable Color.com domain for a hefty $350,000, and Brit-like derivation Colour.com for tens of thousands more. No, Crayola wasn’t involved in the transaction.

Future Challenges: Is the power of NFC enough to turn Color into the next social network craze? The programming wizzes at Instagram, PicSay and Vignette are no doubt unconvinced. But the Color team has managed to dazzle some hard-to-impress industry watchers, including VC Fred Wilson (who did not cut them a check.) Why is that? Color represents a new wave (a “new social graph,” Wilson says) in how we interact with others.