SOURCE: Wetpaint

May 19, 2008 00:01 ET

Wetpaint Raises $25 Million to Accelerate Company's Growth

DAG Ventures and Another Financial Investor Co-Lead Investment as Wetpaint Cements Its Leadership in Social Publishing With Nearly One Million Sites and a New Offering That Makes Every Site Social

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - May 19, 2008) - Wetpaint, the leader in social publishing, today announced it has completed a $25 million round of Series C funding that brings the total investment in Wetpaint to approximately $40 million. DAG Ventures co-led the round with another financial investor, and existing investors Accel Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Frazier Technology Ventures all participated. Wetpaint will use the additional funds to accelerate the adoption of its leading social publishing platform and execute on its vision of making every site on the Web socially published with users empowered to create, collect, and organize content together (see related news today "Wetpaint Injected Instantly Transforms Any Website into a Socially Published Supersite").

"With half a billion words of content and millions of media contributions in its network of nearly one million social sites, Wetpaint has discovered the formula to get ordinary web users publishing together online," said John Cadeddu, General Partner at DAG Ventures. "The resulting content is hugely valuable -- it's already monetizing 10 to 20 times better than what we see on social networks."

The award-winning Wetpaint social publishing platform lets website readers instantly add their own ideas. By making it drop-dead easy to add content and contribute images, audio, video, and widgets, Wetpaint brings millions of people together to collectively build rich content online -- about everything from music and television to gaming, sports, and more.

Wetpaint has also attracted the attention of prominent technology brands -- including HP, T-Mobile, Oracle, Dell, and HTC -- and leading media and entertainment companies -- among them Fox, Showtime, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, and Warner Bros. Telepictures. These companies use the Wetpaint platform to engage audiences to create an ongoing stream of fresh, unique user-generated content. And the new content and audience directly drives additional advertising revenues, reduces customer support costs, and inspires new product and service ideas.

"The next explosive growth phase of the web will come as every website on the planet transitions to become socially published, with user-generated content existing alongside professionally authored content," said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. "With the power of the Wetpaint platform now embeddable for every website publisher and operator, Wetpaint will power the massive transformation of solitary sites into social sites."

To create your own free public or private website, to explore the nearly one million sites already populating the Wetpaint network, or to get Wetpaint for your website, visit www.wetpaint.com.

About DAG Ventures

DAG Ventures invests in technology leaders at the forefront of new, large markets. The San Francisco-based firm seeks to invest in entrepreneurial teams able to overcome the obstacles to create and activate big new market opportunities. Their investments span entrepreneurial companies in the life science, materials, traditional IT, and other sectors. For more information on DAG, visit the firm's website at www.dagventures.com.

About Wetpaint

Wetpaint is the leader in social publishing. With the world's largest network of nearly one million social sites and partnerships with major brands such as Dell, The Discovery Channel, Fox, HP, HTC, Showtime, and T-Mobile, Wetpaint offers the industry's most proven social publishing platform for mainstream users and businesses alike. Wetpaint is backed by Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Frazier Technology Ventures, and Trinity Ventures. For company information, visit www.wetpaint.com.