Associated Content Raises $6 Million in Series C Funding

Big news at AC today! We just announced a new round of funding, full press release with details below.

Investment Round Led by Canaan Partners and SoftBank Capital will Drive Company’s Future Growth and Expansion

Associated Content, the Web's leading online publishing platform, announced today it has closed a $6 million, Series C financing round. The round was funded with full participation from the B round investors: SoftBank Capital, Canaan Partners and Tim Armstrong. Associated Content is one of the fastest-growing, ad-supported properties on the Web and the company will use the funds for consumer, platform, publisher, and advertiser growth.

Patrick Keane, recently appointed CEO of Associated Content, said, “The new investment in AC is a testament to the market opportunity and the commitment of our investors. We plan to complement our explosive contributor and advertiser growth with an increasing partner and consumer focus.”

Associated Content has built one of the most expansive consumer-facing, multimedia content libraries online today. With an archive of more than one million pieces of unique content, Associated Content is rapidly expanding its network of 250,000 professional and amateur site contributors and has developed a proprietary platform that enables highly efficient personal and automated curation, payment and editing.

“Associated Content is redefining publishing on the web,” said Mike Perlis, Partner at SoftBank Capital. “Huge participation from contributors and the resulting traffic metrics are off the charts. Patrick Keane joining the team, with his extraordinary experience and market presence, is powerful testimony to AC's leadership position and bright future.”

“Since our initial investment in Associated Content in 2007, the company has exceeded our expectations and represents one of our most promising and unique investments,” said Warren Lee, Venture Partner at Canaan Partners. “We are excited to continue our support of the company as it strengthens its leadership position in the web content space, builds a talented management team, and further scales its innovative technology platform.”

About Associated Content:
Associated Content, Inc. is an open content network. Founded by Luke Beatty and originally funded by Tim Armstrong in 2005, the Company operates a proprietary content publishing platform that enables individuals and media companies to publish content on any topic, in any format. Associated Content distributes that content to consumers through its site, associatedcontent.com, and through its network of partners. Learn more at www.associatedcontent.com.

About Canaan Partners:
Canaan Partners invests in visionary entrepreneurs and provides them the networks, insights and operational guidance required to build high-performance technology and healthcare companies. For 20 years, they have taken an active and committed role in the companies in which they invest, and have completed more than 72 mergers and acquisitions and 53 IPOs. With $3 billion under management and a worldwide footprint, the firm’s technology team is committed to catalyzing the growth of innovative companies in the digital media, communications & mobility, enterprise and clean tech industries. Among its successes are Acme Packet, Amicus Therapeutics, Cerexa Inc., CommerceOne, DexCom Inc., DoubleClick, Intralinks, Match.com, SuccessFactors and WebLoyalty. Other Canaan investments include Active Networks, AdvancedBioHealing, BharatMatrimony, BiPar Sciences, Blurb, Chimerix, Inc., N-trig, Prime Sense, ReVision Optics, Inc., Transoma Medical, Inc, Tremor Media and Xirrus. Canaan has offices in California, Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information, visit www.canaan.com.

About SoftBank Capital:
SoftBank Capital is an independent venture capital firm focused on high-growth, technology-based businesses benefiting from the rapid deployment and adoption of broadband and mobile technologies. Through its current fund, SoftBank Capital Technology Fund III L.P., the firm has invested in numerous successful companies. For more about SoftBank Capital see www.softbank.com.

Associated Content Hires Patrick Keane as CEO

Big news at AC this week--we've got a new CEO!

Patrick Keane started in AC's New York offices on Monday, March 30. He brings deep experience in digital media, advertising and technology to AC and we're very proud to have him on board.

Patrick comes to AC from CBS Interactive, where he was EVP and Chief Marketing Officer. At CBS he was responsible for sales strategy, consumer marketing, advertising operations, field marketing, and research and analytics for all properties across sports, news and entertainment.

Prior to joining CBS, Keane spent more than four years at Google. He was head of advertising sales strategy responsible for developing and managing the strategic plans and relationships and was the original founder of Zeitgeist, Google's annual thought leadership forum. Patrick also built and led Google's North American field marketing team.

Prior to Google, Keane was at Jupiter Research.

You'll be hearing more about Patrick as he gets settled and we introduce him to the AC Community. If you're curious you can read more about the him on the WSJ's All Things D blog, on Reuters and on PaidContent.

AC Now Providing Daily Page View Updates

Great news! Associated Content now updates every Content Producer's estimated page views on a daily basis.

Daily updates mean that you’ll be able to watch in close to real time how your content is performing. This is something our Community has been requesting for a long time, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer it to our CPs.

Now, please keep in mind that these numbers are only estimations until we’ve had a chance to verify them. We verify all page views at the end of the month in order to sure that they're coming from legitimate sources (instead of bots or other blackhat methods) before processing Performance Payments, and adjust the numbers when necessary.

We hope you’ll enjoy receiving daily insight into the popularity of the content you publish on AC!

User Verification Launching Next Week

We announced a while ago that Associated Content would soon be introducing an account verification system.

The system, launching next week, is designed to fight fraud and protect the integrity of AC's library and our entire community. This is a way to ensure that your work is surrounded by original content from verified Content Producers, and that fraudulent submissions don’t slow down review time.

The process is simple — all you need is a phone number. Here’s how it will work:

Soon you'll see messages around the site that encourage you to verify your account. When you verify, you’ll enter your phone number, and a few seconds later you’ll receive a four-digit code via phone call or text message (your choice). Enter this code into the site, and your account will be verified. We’ll also offer alternative methods of verifying your account – please contact verify[at]associatedcontent.com for details. Once your account has been verified, you will never be asked to repeat the process.

Here is a shot of what an unverified account will look like on your Payment page:

And here's a shot of the verified view of the Account page:

Other important notes:

• If you’ve already filed an IRS W-9 form with AC, you will not need to verify your account.
• AC will never share your phone number or other personal information with a third party for any purpose other than verification.
• You will not be able to receive further payments from AC until your account has been verified. After 90 days, all payments to unverified accounts will be forfeited.
• You can only verify one account per phone number. If you share a household and phone number with another CP, you may contact us for additional verification options.
• The system will verify non-U.S. phone numbers.
  
• Once the system launches, please contact verify[at]associatedcontent.com if you have questions or concerns.

Thanks so much, everyone! With your help this system is going to make Associated Content an even better place to publish your work and connect with other Content Producers.

Associated Content's Big Announcement

There was a little tease about this posted here on the AC Blog earlier in the week, and here is the official announcement:

Everyone at Associated Content has been working hard on a major update to the look of the site. We expect the new look to do great things for usability. Highlights include a more professional appearance that will appeal to visitors, functional improvements to article pages and enhanced Content Producer profiles.

Logged-in CPs will get to preview all the major updates by December 1st, and the official re-launch will happen at the beginning of 2009.

We're very excited about the update and are certain that you will be, too!

Best of AC Awards October Winners and a Special Announcement

Associated Content recently announced the October winners of our Best of AC Awards - a series of monthly contests that reward CPs publishing extraordinary content in a wide range of categories across the site. This post comes a little late, but these Content Producers are too good not to be highlighted by the AC Blog for their accomplishments.

The winners of October's Best of AC Awards awards:

Sylvia Cochran won for her stellar and tireless Election Coverage. Read her "election postmortem" for what we can all expect after the marathon election process.

Lee Andrew Henderson was awarded for best Sports Coverage. Basketball fans should check out his analysis of the Alan Iverson/Chauncey Billups trade.

A. Hermitt published the best Personal Finance coverage during the month of October. Read here to learn why it is always a good idea to set aside money for emergencies, even in a time where we seemingly live on credit.

Be sure to stop by the winners' CP profiles and congratulate them!



Finally, the announcement: AC's Design Team is very excited to share the news that a site redesign is coming soon! Within the next few weeks you'll see a launch in beta of a fantastic new look for Associated Content. We're all thrilled about it and we're sure that you'll be wowed, too. More on this soon.