The Florida-based web2.0 start up, Multiply has raised $16.6 million in series B funding following its first round of $6 million three years ago. It’s a good financial back up for Peter Pezaris who can now take new initiatives to make the site more attractive.
Beating initial pressures Multiply has ushered as one of the popular social forums for the aged people. Founded in late 2003, the site has recorded 10 million unique visitors in August 2007. It allows users to share photos, videos, blogs, music, restaurant and movie reviews, and calendar events with their network.
In USA, there are more than two million Multiply users. Pezaris claims the number is escalating ten percent a month and the unique visitors doubled since it introduced a more streamlined user interface last year.
Multiply was not among the Comscore’s top social networks list in July as it had not registered 10 million unique visitors. It was trailing the small networking sites including, Orkut, Bebo and even Tagged.
Multiply is a different from MySpace and Facebook in the sense that the former is a network of elders. Most of the members are 30+ people. It does not mean that younger (college going students) are not allowed to this social networking.
With venture funds poured into the social startup, we should keenly watch whether the Multiply will go exclusively for the elders or go like MySpace or Facebook.
