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Mobile Media SendMe Grabs $12 Million In Financing

Mobile media company SendMe has secured $12 million in Series D growth capital financing led by new investor Triangle Peak Partners, along with existing investors True Ventures, Amicus Capital, Spark Capital and GrandBanks Capital.

"This new round of funding ... provides more capital than we need in order to continue our (growth) trajectory," said Russell Klein, co-founder and CEO of SendMe.

As a growing number of wireless consumers begin to surf the mobile Web, online social networks and other media companies are ramping up content output, and experiencing significant growth.

This past year, San Francisco-based SendMe reported a 500% increase in the size of its content catalog, along with strong user adoption, engagement and retention across each of its three core properties: SendMeMobile.com, SoLow.com and mbuzzy.com.

Over the last year, the company has added new premium and community-generated content, services, and applications across its connected portfolio and has entered into some 30 partnerships with the likes of Universal Music Group, Warner Music, EMI, Sony Pictures and Corbis.

The proportion of U.S. mobile subscribers who access social networks on their cell phones nearly tripled to almost 10% in the last year, according to a recent study by The Kelsey Group and ConStat. By 2012, eMarketer projects that more than 800 million users worldwide will participate in social networks via their mobile device, up from 82 million in 2007.

Preempting this trend, in late 2007, SendMe acquired the mbuzzy online and mobile community. With mbuzzy, users create a profile and share pictures, videos and other content via mobile phone or desktop. The off-deck service also allows for instant messaging, chat and status alerts--and it's not tied to any particular carrier or handset, maximizing the potential for market penetration.