With Facebook’s highly publicized (and high worth) acquisition of photography wonder Instagr.am, the competition to become the equivalent for video is getting increasingly fierce. With that being said, Socialcam, a byproduct application of Justin.tv that allows anyone to create videos, add filters and store those videos onto a cloud or share via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube recently received a considerable amount in seed funding from a large group of angel investors. Although news of this sort is relatively commonplace, what is worth noting in this case is the all-start list of individuals who have opened their chequebooks to back Socialcam.
Below is the list of angel investors courtesy of TechCrunch:
Brian Chesky – CEO, Airbnb
Jonathan Abrams – Partner, Founders Den
Jason Johnson – Partner, Founders Den
Zachary Bogue – Partner, Founders Den
Michael Levit – Partner, Founders Den
Jeff Kapel – Assistant Coach, Duke Basketball
WME – Ari Emmanuel & Jason Lublin
Trajan Langdon – Retired NBA Basketball Player
Yuri Milner & Felix Shpilman – Startfund
Troy Carter & Allison Streuter – Atom Factory
SV Angel – Ron, David, Kevin, Topher, Robert
Crunchfund – Michael, MG, Patrick
Paul Buchheit – Inventor of Gmail, Founder FriendFeed, Partner Y-Combinator
Garry Tan – Partner Y-Combinator, Co-Founder Posterous
Alexis Ohanian – Partner Y-Combinator, Co-Founder Reddit
Harj Taggar – Partner Y-Combinator, Co-Founder Auctomatic
Paul Graham – Co-founder Y-Combinator
Jessica Livingston – Partner Y-Combinator
Tim Draper – Draper Associates
Stewart Alsop – Alsop Louie
Erik Moore – Angel investor in Zappos
Justin Kan – Co-Founder EXEC, Co-Founder Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
Emmett Shear – CEO & Co-Founder Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
Kyle Vogt – Co-Founder Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
Matt Ocko – Angel Investor
A-Grade Investments – Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, and Chris Hollod
Ronny Conway – Andreessen Horowitz
Justin Caldbeck – Lightspeed
Shervin Pishevar – Menlo Ventures
Laurene Powell Jobs & Stacey Rubin – Emerson Collective
Ram Shiram – Sherpalo, Angel Investor in Google
Shane Battier – NBA Basketball player, Miami Heat
Michael Rapino & Michael Abrams – Live Nation
As you can see, you would be hard pressed to find a slouch among the names listed above. It would also be hard to blame the aforementioned angels for their contribution given that Socialcam currently boasts 20 million Facebook users and counting who upload and share video onto the social network. Although we have our issues with Socialcam uploads on Facebook – mainly that unless you download the application you will be unable to view the videos posted and shared by your cohorts, something that can prove to be extremely irritating, it is hard to argue with its obvious success and use.
Over the coming months it will be interesting to see how Socialcam and its current team of 3 separate themselves from an increasingly crowded field that includes their main rival Viddy as well as the realistic possibility that Instagr.am will also introduce a video application.
Viddy recently raised a successful Series B of $30 million, giving it a valuation of $370 million as well as some serious A listers within their 15 million users including none other than Mark Zuckerberg. Whether either firm is purchased by the big blue machine Facebook or opts to head in another direction, the battle is without question fully on.
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