Steve Rosenbaum '83, Founder of Magnify Networks, Closes Series A Investment Round;
New York Angels And NextStage Capital Invest $1.2 Million In Video Channel Creator
New York, NY – February 12nd, 2007 – Following its highly anticipated launch at the Demo 2007 Conference, Magnify Networks announced that it has closed on an investment of $1.2 million to accelerate the growth of its search-and-sort platform for Internet based, user-generated video channels. Magnify was founded by Steve Rosenbaum '83, widely regarded as the "Father of User-Generated Video."
Magnify.net enables publishers of all sizes – from large media companies to web publishers and video bloggers – to create their own video channel featuring targeted content for their niche communities. Magnify provides the templates and controls that allow publishers to quickly and efficiently gather, organize and share videos with their community, growing their power and reach. The company’s peer-driven video review solution provides an advertiser-safe viewing environment.
The Series A Preferred round was co-led by New York Angels, one of the country's leading groups of early stage investors, and by NextStage Capital, an early stage venture capital fund focused on Mid-Atlantic technology companies. Investors in the round included Chris Anderson, Curator of the TED Conference, Active Angel Investors of Washington, DC, and Stage 1 Ventures.
“Magnify Networks is a breakthrough opportunity to think about online video in a more granular way” said David S. Rose, Chairman of New York Angels. “It’s clear that video will be critical to the future of the web, and sites of all sizes—regardless of their content focus—will need to embrace video in order to remain vibrant and engaging. Magnify’s platform is elegant and scalable, and the team has deep roots in the space.”
“We have evaluated numerous companies looking to capitalize on the growth of user generated video,” said Dan McKinney, Managing Partner at NextStage Capital. “Magnify.net is run by a true industry veteran and serial entrepreneur who has created the most scalable business model of anything we have evaluated. The early growth is beyond our expectations and proving the scalability of the model.
Magnify was founded by industry veteran Steve Rosenbaum, widely regarded as the 'Father of User-Generated Video' from his ground-breaking work with MTV Unfiltered. “Clearly there is a lot of money flowing into this space. But we were looking for investors who would also be partners in driving success,” said Rosenbaum. “We think we’ve put together some of the best and brightest investors – and they’ve already provided far more than capital as we’ve move through the investment process."
In the 90 day beta period prior to launch, Magnify has been used to create over 2,300 channels with over 200,000 videos, from niche markets like YouSurfTubes (http://yousurftubes.magnify.net) to mainstream websites like The Weather Channel (http://uservideo.weather.com)
About Magnify.net
Magnify.net powers user-generated video channels for web publishers, media companies, and video bloggers. The Magnify platform searches and sorts video based on a site's unique interest and engages the users to discover, share, rate and rank them for relevancy and entertainment value. The company is founded by a team of experienced media, technology, and web development entrepreneurs with track record of best-of-breed innovations. With over 2,000 UGV Channels already on the platform, Magnify.net provides customer focused solutions that are critical to the Video 2.0 revolution www.magnify.net
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