INVESTMENT : money in the bag

Mind Candy Acquires TUTPup

Tutpup allows youngster across the globe to compete in multiplayer maths and spelling challenges, and currently boasts 350,000 active players worldwide. Tutpup was developed by Cominded, a London-based firm owned by Bebo co-founder Paul Birch.

Seems like a good move however based on research I'm not sure that there are 350K active players on this site it seems that 10k would be a more realistic figure, and I would imagine that the acquisition is low value.

Disney Acquires Kerpoof For Kid-Generated Content

Kerpoof, is a Web-based suite of tools that lets kids create scenes, art, avatars and more.

UGC is becoming more and more popular and Disney are certainly doing all they can to position themselves in the top spot for online media. May be we will see this tech find its way to Club Penguin.

OfferPal gets $15 million series B

Today Offerpal Media announced that it had closed a $15 million round of Series B venture capital financing. The new round is lead by D.E. Shaw Ventures, with existing Offerpal investors InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners also participating. Offerpal states the money will be used primarily to improve the infrastructure of the platform and help it expand into new mobile and international markets.

A lot of people are unsure how to monetize Social Networks and dubious of what is possible....but let me be clear there are some experts like SR and OfferPal who know exactly how and some apps are making above 1 mio per month in rev. This investment does not surprise me, furthermore I would not be surprised to see a similar investment in Super Rewards.


Virtual Fairground Announces $4M Funding

Virtual Fairground announced today that it had raised $4 million in funding from one undisclosed angel investor. The announcement came alongside the news that Virtual Fairground had licensed the Alphanim cartoon Galactik Football to create a Flash-based virtual world. The funding is actually older: Co-Founder Maarten Brands had previously told WIM that the company had raised its round in Summer 2008, but wanted to remain under the radar until recently.

Wamba Aquired for 4 million Euros

Wamba is a Spanish social network with a focus on Latin American users. The company plans to launch an IPTV called Wamba.TV and a radio music service called Wamba.FM.