By Rhonda Wickham
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Softbank and SK Telecom Ventures, the VC arm of SK Telecom, have contributed $17 million to RockYou, a distributor of social Web applications.
In June, RockYou announced an initial C Round investment of $35 million; this current round brings the company's funding to $67 million.
The financing will let RockYou extend its presence in the Asia-Pacific market. RockYou has been focusing development efforts overseas, including expansion into Xiaonei, China's equivalent to MySpace or Facebook.
SoftBank and RockYou also will set up a new JV company that will develop widget and application products and services for use on PCs and mobile devices in the Asian market. The new financing will fuel RockYou's domestic growth, including the opening of New York, Los Angeles and Detroit offices.