Stardoll.com Closes $6m Series B Funding Led by Sequoia Capital and Adds
Prominent Entertainment Industry Lawyer to Board
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, June 27, 2006 – Stardoll.com, the online dress-up and makeover community, today announced the close of a $6 million Series B round. The round was led by US-based Sequoia Capital with previous investor Index Ventures also participating. The company also announced that Fred Davis, an expert in media and entertainment law and founder of Davis Shapiro Lewit & Hayes will join the Company’s board of directors.
The investment syndicate brings together two of the most active and successful investors in the consumer Internet area. Between them their successes include Yahoo, Google, Skype, PayPal and Betfair. “This is an exciting time for the company. We have launched many new features to delight our users and have been entering into commercial discussions to broaden the revenue base,” said Mattias Miksche, CEO of Stardoll. “It’s invaluable having backers like Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures who have so much experience in this area and will help grow our US presence.”
Stardoll.com is one of the most popular online destinations for young girls worldwide. The site features more than 330 celebrity dolls whom users can style with thousands of different clothes and accessories. Each week the site attracts more than 1.2 million unique visitors from over 200 countries.
“We were impressed with the exponential growth of Stardoll.com and sheer number of young people moving online to enjoy this pastime,” Mark Kvamme of Sequoia Capital. “Stardoll’s team has developed a close relationship with its online international community and is well-positioned to continue attracting the growing interest of a highly motivated and creative demographic.”
Besides celebrity dolls, the site has just launched the MeDoll feature, which allows users to create a personalized doll whom they can dress with merchandise from a virtual store. In addition to increasing revenues from user payments, this new feature also creates opportunities for marketing partnerships with fashion, retail and media brands.
About Stardoll.com
Stardoll.com, formerly known as Paperdoll Heaven, is an online dress-up and makeover community for girls of all ages. The Stardoll.com site features more than 330 dolls and tens of thousands of garments and accessories. The site has registered users from over 200 countries and is adding close to 10,000 new members per day. The company is headquartered in Stockholm and also has operations in Finland. For more information, please visit www.stardoll.com.
About Sequoia Capital
Since 1972, Sequoia Capital has provided startup venture capital for very smart people who want to turn ideas into companies. As the “Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs”, Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with innovators such as Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Gaurav Garg of Redback Networks, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Max Levchin and Peter Thiel of PayPal (eBay), T.J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor, Lou Tomasetta of Vitesse Semiconductor, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer and Larry Ellison of Oracle. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.
About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading European venture capital firm active in technology venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology and Life Science sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders. The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses its investment activity primarily on Europe and Israel. Investments include Betfair (the world's largest betting exchange); Skype (the pioneering communications company, recently acquired by eBay); MySQL (the world's most popular open source database); Photoways (Europe’s largest online photo-processing service) FON (the global wifi network) and Lovefilm (Europe’s largest DVD rental business). www.indexventues.com
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