Meebo closes $25 million funding round
As expected, the Web-based chat and instant message service hits its funding target.
Meebo, which continues to release new Web-based instant message and chat applications, is announcing tonight that it has closed a $25 million funding round led by Jafco Ventures. Jafco's investment portfolio includes other online communications plays, such as classifieds utility Oodle, Exchange competitor PostPath, and Web content tracker Attributor. It looks like a good club for Meebo to join.
Also participating in the funding is Time Warner Investments, and KTB Ventures. Time Warner Investments is a strategic investing arm for Time Warner; this investment will give Meebo hooks into major media properties. KTB's portfolio has a Far East bias, with more than half of its portfolio companies based in China and Korea.
Meebo's previous investors, Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, also participated in this round.
Meebo has a competitor nipping at its heels: Soashable (review) has the mission of creating an "open-source Meebo clone;" it offers about the same core features as Meebo did when it launched in 2005. Trillian, which also makes a multinetwork IM client, has not kept up with Meebo on the Web front.