Whisper raises $51 million while Secret raises $10 million.
Adam Rifkin stashed this in @lizgannes
Stashed in: Instagram!, Path, Redpoint, @ajs, Active Users, Snapchat, WhatsApp!, Secret!
Post-WhatsApp acquisition, VCs quickly pour money into the best mobile apps they can find.
Liz Gannes writes that a Whisper is now worth $200 million and Secret is now worth $50 million:
Whisper, the popular anonymous sharing app, is reeling in more money from venture capitalists, only six months after its last funding round.
The round is worth just shy of $30 million, and places post-money valuation on the company of around $200 million, said multiple sources close to the situation. It was led by Shasta Ventures, with Thrive Capital and, interestingly, China’s Tencent participating. Sources added that it is still possible that Tencent might add another $15 million to the round, said a source, presumably increasing the valuation.
The new round is on top of $21 million with a $76 million valuation for the last round Whisper did back in September. Existing investors, such as Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, have also joined this new round.
Even in these frothy times, it would have been quite a feat for a mobile app company to spend that much that fast. Sources described the current funding as more of a creating a stockpile for future growth.
The Los Angeles area-based Whisper is part of a backlash to the braggy, social-climbing, buzzy nature of the social media era. It’s trying to encourage people to say what they really think and feel, by taking away the pressure of their permanent online record. Within the Whisper app, there’s no notion of profiles or followers.
Whisper is especially hot with young people and on college campuses, although it’s recently been surpassed in popularity in Silicon Valley by San Francisco-based Secret, which is raising a closely watched Series A round of about $10 million with a $50 million valuation, as others have reported.
Secret has a slicker design than Whisper, with a neat personalization twist that centers on anonymous gossip and confessions from people known to each user. Whisper is a more serious operation at this point, with a massive content moderation team and established efforts to help people who confess things that seem particularly concerning.
Compare with Snapchat, which has now raised $123 million:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/11/snapchat-series-c-50-million/
I cannot find active user counts or engagement for Secret, Whisper, or Snapchat.
Which means they are insignificant compared with engagement numbers for Instagram and WhatsApp.
Recall that both Instagram and WhatsApp raised about $58 million apiece before getting acquired.
I wish HalibutBoy was here to tell us how ridiculous Snapchat, Whisper, and Secret are.
Mobile sure is a winner-take-all playing field.
...and Whisper raised another $36 million.
To "personalize" Whisper instead of everyone seeing one global feed:
...and Secret raised another $25 million.
To add Facebook connect.
Alyson Shontell reports the round was led by Index and Redpoint:
http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-raises-25-million-at-100-million-valuation-2014-7
Yup.
The logic of Secret's raises:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/10/the-logic-of-crazy-valuations/
3:55 AM Mar 11 2014