[Posted on January 29, 2008 - 10:21 PM]
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DiggPalm Desert, Calif.--Moli.com, a social networking startup that announced the closing of a $29.25 million second round of funding this week, worries me for two reason. First, it's raised a ton of money ($55.25 million in total) at a time when conventional wisdom says it's supposed to be inexpensive to launch a company on the Web. Second, the startup is building a destination social networking site at a time when Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a handful of niche social networks are in the midst of consolidating the marketplace.
Christos Cotsakos established Moli.com in 2005 and backed it with $20 million of the fortune he earned as the CEO of E*Trade. Private investors such Home Depot co-founders Bernard Marcus and Kenneth Langone and Steven Holzman, an investor at Los Angeles-based hedge fund Vantis Capital Management LLC, contributed significantly to the recent $30 million round. Cotsakos told me that his gap analysis showed that there is an underserved market for social networking and that there is a need among existing members of social networking sites to manage their personal and professional profiles.
The site is loaded with features and can accommodate small businesses as well as individuals. Cotsakos wasn't in a particularly expansive mood on the Demo exhibition floor this morning and referred me to Moli.com's CEO for a video interview. Watch Judy Balint explain below why she thinks Moli.com can buck conventional wisdom and succeed. - Joshua Jaffe
Joshua Jaffe is general manager of TechConfidential.com.
I run a social-network www.profilepic.com and without any funding mangaged to get it in the top 50,000 sites of the World (alexa) since 2005.