ChessCube has concluded a US$1.25m funding agreement with Venture Capital fund, InVenFin (Pty) Ltd. InVenFin, the VC-focused subsidiary of VenFin Limited, invests in intellectual property-based start-ups with global potential. This transaction brings ChessCube’s total funding to date to US$1.8m.
ChessCube is an online chess site, which allows players of all skill levels to compete and learn chess, while socializing with others. With a potential market of over fifty million active chess players in the world, ChessCube.com has already attracted over 650,000 registered users across 207 countries – making it one of the leaders in the growing online chess market.
Mark Levitt, CEO and founder of ChessCube says, “We are delighted to have InVenFin on board as our partner. Over and above the valuable capital injection, InVenFin gives us access to an international business network, and their team of experts in branding, product strategy, intellectual property management and corporate structuring. This investment allows ChessCube to focus on establishing itself as the world leader in online chess.”
InVenFin’s Stuart Gast says, “ChessCube’s innovative product offering has impressed us, along with the strong team led by Mark. The social gaming space is growing rapidly worldwide, and we believe ChessCube represents an excellent entrance for us into this world. We look forward to assisting ChessCube achieve its aspirations.”
Vinny Lingham, CEO of San Francisco-based Yola.com, was an early investor in ChessCube. “As a keen chess player myself, it is particularly exciting to be part of an innovative chess venture,” said Lingham. “This investment by InVenFin further highlights the potential of Cape Town as the technology hub of Africa – which I like to dub Silicon Cape. ChessCube has enormous potential to dominate the massive global chess players’ market.”
The partnership between ChessCube.com and InVenfin will allow ChessCube.com to become the most recognized and loved online brand for chess enthusiasts.
ChessCube enables all levels of chess players to play live chess against other like-minded players, in various forms of the game. The focus at ChessCube.com is enjoying the game of chess in a positive and fun environment.
ChessCube.com also offers interactive chess videos written by international grandmasters. Unlike DVDs, these videos interact with each user, offering them personalised instruction – an outstanding innovation that earned ChessCube a Semi-final placing in the 2008 Adobe Max Awards in San Francisco.
World history was recently made by ChessCube when, during its recent sponsorship of the 2009 South African Open, along with the 400 participants at a Cape Town venue, for the first time in history three grandmasters and masters participated from a second venue in Melbourne, Australia. FIDE, the world chess federation, worked with ChessCube to ensure that the games, which were played across the Internet, were officially rated, setting a new precedent that could see tournaments using this technology in the future.
ChessCube continues to innovate and build on its award-winning chess playing platform from its Cape Town headquarters.
Useful links
ChessCube website: www.chesscube.com
ChessCube blog: www.blog.chesscube.com
Showing posts with label VenFin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VenFin. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Reinet
I had been meaning to blog about Reinet earlier this week and then got swamped with other stuff.
Upfront I need to remind you that my primary reason for buying shares in private equity firm Reinet was a desire to get some access to the Rupert family's "deal-flow" and their ability to spot good investment opportunities and generate a return for shareholders.
I got in quite cheaply so I am up a few bucks on this investment but it was interesting to note their comments in their recent results announcement.
One of the big concerns I had was that Reinet would become something of a "value trap" along the lines of Venfin where it took a long time for shareholders to get anything significant in the form of dividends or realised profits from investments.
Bear in mind that Reinet enjoys handy "cash-flow" from its investment in British American Tobacco so there should be no reason why shareholders shouldn't get a piece of this.
I thought it was quite encouraging then that Reinet mentioned that dividends were on the cards in the coming financial years.
Upfront I need to remind you that my primary reason for buying shares in private equity firm Reinet was a desire to get some access to the Rupert family's "deal-flow" and their ability to spot good investment opportunities and generate a return for shareholders.
I got in quite cheaply so I am up a few bucks on this investment but it was interesting to note their comments in their recent results announcement.
One of the big concerns I had was that Reinet would become something of a "value trap" along the lines of Venfin where it took a long time for shareholders to get anything significant in the form of dividends or realised profits from investments.
Bear in mind that Reinet enjoys handy "cash-flow" from its investment in British American Tobacco so there should be no reason why shareholders shouldn't get a piece of this.
I thought it was quite encouraging then that Reinet mentioned that dividends were on the cards in the coming financial years.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
fring gets 3rd round funding
fring™ (www.fring.com), the leading mobile Internet community and communication service, today announced the successful completion of its third round of funding to accelerate fring’s growth, openness and business activities. All previous fring investors participated in this round including U.S. based North Bridge Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Veritas Venture Partners and VenFin Limited.
Avi Shechter, fring co-founder and CEO said: “With this new funding round we will accelerate the realization of our ongoing commitment to make fring even more accessible, relevant and easy to use, therefore reducing practical barriers for mainstream users as well as 3rd party developers and partners who have expressed continued interest in fring and the fring platform.” He continued, “Combining community, experience and communication fring is already turning the mobile into the ultimate social device by mashing up people’s favourite forms and modes of communication even beyond what the fixed PC environment can offer. With this new investment all our investors recognize our leadership in this emerging paradigm shift, and demonstrate their long-term commitment to our vision. We plan to add to the fring experience and make it an ever more central part of fringsters’ social lives”.
This additional funding will be used to continue making fring more easily accessible and relevant to users and partners. With more supported platforms, devices, add-on services contributed by developers worldwide, continuously improved usability and rich features, fring is turning the mainstream mobile device into the social nexus for users to share, interact and communicate with all their cross-community mobile and online friends. For example, fring users share experiences with friends on facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and more, while communicating via Skype®, MSN® Messenger, GoogleTalk TM, Yahoo!TM, AIM® and ICQ® among others, and further enhanced with functional and location based services like WeFi, all through a single social experience from their simple fring interface on their mobile device.
Shechter concluded, “Our millions of users actively sharing, interacting and communicating over fring today will benefit greatly as fring becomes even more accessible to the rest of the mobile world, ready to shift their online social nexus to their mobile phones.”
Avi Shechter, fring co-founder and CEO said: “With this new funding round we will accelerate the realization of our ongoing commitment to make fring even more accessible, relevant and easy to use, therefore reducing practical barriers for mainstream users as well as 3rd party developers and partners who have expressed continued interest in fring and the fring platform.” He continued, “Combining community, experience and communication fring is already turning the mobile into the ultimate social device by mashing up people’s favourite forms and modes of communication even beyond what the fixed PC environment can offer. With this new investment all our investors recognize our leadership in this emerging paradigm shift, and demonstrate their long-term commitment to our vision. We plan to add to the fring experience and make it an ever more central part of fringsters’ social lives”.
This additional funding will be used to continue making fring more easily accessible and relevant to users and partners. With more supported platforms, devices, add-on services contributed by developers worldwide, continuously improved usability and rich features, fring is turning the mainstream mobile device into the social nexus for users to share, interact and communicate with all their cross-community mobile and online friends. For example, fring users share experiences with friends on facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and more, while communicating via Skype®, MSN® Messenger, GoogleTalk TM, Yahoo!TM, AIM® and ICQ® among others, and further enhanced with functional and location based services like WeFi, all through a single social experience from their simple fring interface on their mobile device.
Shechter concluded, “Our millions of users actively sharing, interacting and communicating over fring today will benefit greatly as fring becomes even more accessible to the rest of the mobile world, ready to shift their online social nexus to their mobile phones.”
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