Company: Wallop
Description: Social Networking
Competitors: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Cyworld
Location: Redmond, Wash.
Amount Raised: $10 million
Round: Second
Date Announced: 9/25/06
VC Firms: Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners, Consor Capital
VC Directors: Eric Chin, Jeff Crowe
Quick Take: Corporate spinouts don't have a particularly good record. It's hard to replace corporate langor with entrepreneurial vigor. But, that track record shouldn't prevent Wallop from succeeding. With solid Microsoft technology, an experienced CEO, enough money to get going and a flakey market looking for the latest and greatest, the potential for rapid growth is there. And the real secret to its promise is its business model that will charge users a little bit for each modification they would like to make for their Web page. Most users probably won't go for this, but if they do for some reason, Wallop will pack quite a punch.

Technology (1 out of 10): 6
Market: 6
Management: 5
Chances for IPO: 3
Overall VC Rating: 6

For more on the latest Microsoft spinout, see:
Don Dodge
Wallop press release
Liz Gannes

Tags: wallop, microsoft, vc, venture+capital