|
contents | technologies | |||||||
| Heavy.com сloses $10 Million Financing Heavy.com, the world's leading broadband network with more than 10 million unique viewers monthly, today announced that it closed a $10 million financing round led by Polaris Venture Partners. Allen & Company served as a financial advisor to Heavy for the transaction. In addition, Heavy announced two new board appointments: Mike Hirshland, General Partner of Polaris, and Avram Miller, former Vice President of Intel Corp. and current CEO of the Avram Miller Company. Co-founders and Co-CEOs Simon Assaad and David Carson made the announcements. The financing will be used to accelerate the roll-out of original programming created expressly for online and mobile consumption. In addition, in coming months, Heavy will launch MyHeavy.com, a broadband community, and Teriyaki Strips, a new network that's targeted to teen males spawned from Heavy's wildly popular Teriyaki Strips channel. The pioneering broadband network, Heavy was founded in 1999. Its comic, short-form video, animation and machinima programs have built cult audiences worldwide. Last month, Nielsen//NetRatings named Heavy the 7th Fastest Growing Web Brand. Nielsen counts Heavy's viewership at more than 10 million unique visitors per month, the majority of which are young males, a demographic highly coveted by advertisers. Among Heavy's signature programs are "Behind the Music that Sucks, " "Pimp My Weapon, " "Contagious, " "Blisster" and "Tourettes Cowboy." Heavy's lineup of seasonal programming-MUST STREAM TV-has built blockbuster audiences that eclipse those of many cable networks. "We're excited to advance our leadership position in broadband and mobile programming, " said Simon Assaad. "To date, we've been extremely successful in building a catalogue of programming that thrills, titillates and entertains audiences in the tens of millions. The proceeds of this financing will allow us to further extend this reach, particularly in the mobile arena." "Heavy was the first to develop and execute an ad-supported strategy for free video downloads to Sony's PSP, the video iPod and Virgin's Slider Sonic cell phone, " said David Carson. "We expect to remain at the bleeding edge of mobile content delivery and unique advertising channels that resonate with teen males and young adults." "Broadband and mobile both represent increasingly important distribution platforms and an exciting opportunity for the creation of new media companies, " said Mike Hirshland of Polaris (http://vcmike.wordpress.com)."With its demonstrated creative genius, rapidly growing audience and distinct value to advertisers, we believe Heavy is changing the rules and is poised to become an important and highly successful media company. Polaris is thrilled to be partnering with Heavy." write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Networking News :: home page |