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Venture Capital News: Flipagram Lands $70M

2015-07-16
LOS ANGELES, CA, Flipagram, the easiest way for people to create and share amazing visual stories using the photos, videos and music on their phones, today announced that it has closed a $70 million round of financing.
The round was led by Sequoia, and joined in the round by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures. Michael Moritz, chairman of Sequoia, and John Doerr, general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, have joined Flipagram's board of directors.

'We are truly honored to be working with such extraordinary investors,' said Farhad Mohit, founder and CEO of Flipagram. 'It's still the early days of our journey, but we are lucky to have such powerful allies in our mission to democratize storytelling and give people everywhere the power to create and share amazing visual stories using just their smartphones.'

With tens of millions of monthly users worldwide, Flipagram has been one of the fastest growing apps in the world. Easy to create and fun to consume, Flipagrams are highly social, short video stories that offer more narrative space than Vine or Instagram looping videos, but are shorter and less cumbersome to create and share than longer length YouTube or Facebook videos.

'Flipagrams are easy to create and the way they combine photos, video, music and audio furnishes them with a global appeal,' said Sequoia's Michael Moritz. 'Flipagram's popularity shows that the app has touched a chord with people everywhere.'

Flipagram already counts hundreds of influencers and artists as part of its organically growing user base including, Fifth Harmony, Britney Spears, Jessica Alba, Maroon 5, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Jamie Foxx, Miranda Lambert, Garth Brooks, Quest Love, and many others, as well as social media talent and budding Flipagram stars like Roberto De Jesus, Natalie DiScala, Legendary Shots, Hector Alejandro, Derik Fein, Neda Alkhalaf, and Sam Ciudar.

Popular Flipagrams are 'reflipped' on the app and easily shared to other social networks, quickly spreading organically and gaining views. Also, because they can be linked to further action, like purchasing the song they come with, or visiting a website, Flipagrams are highly effective at telling a quick story and inspiring action.

The Whole Story in Less than a Minute

Everyone has a story worth telling, and Flipagram makes it easy to tell them. Flipagrams convey depth, meaning and narrative in bite-sized packages that are easy to create and fun to consume. As short movies complete with popular music soundtracks, Flipagram stories transcend language by engaging two primary senses on a powerful narrative journey that is much more compelling than just photos, videos, music or text posts alone.

For almost any topic, many high quality, user-generated Flipagrams are constantly being created, including whole channels in the app dedicated to Animals, Humor, Dance & Music, Selfies & Besties, Food, Art & Design, Adventure, Fashion & Beauty, Fandom, Family, Sports, and Health and Fitness.

Landmark Music Deals also Announced

In conjunction with its financing announcement, Flipagram also announced today that it has struck landmark deals with leading music labels and publishers, creating a comprehensive catalog of millions of song clips, from the latest popular hits to the most obscure indie tracks, for Flipagram users to freely use as the perfect soundtracks to their video stories.

'Flipagram's technology lets you weave images, music, and video into moving stories of our lives,' said John Doerr, general partner at KPCB. 'They have the right partnerships, business model, and intellectual firepower to be the preferred platform for next-gen content creators.'

About Flipagram

Everyone has stories worth telling. Flipagram's mission is to give everyone the power to create and share amazing, visual stories that can inspire, entertain and inform. Flipagrams are easy to create, fun to consume and by allowing photos, videos and music to tell the story, they transcend language, giving people all over the world the ability to share their stories and to have a voice. With tens of millions of users monthly worldwide and growing, Flipagram is quickly becoming a go-to platform for musical artists, influencers, brands and millions of ordinary people to easily tell their stories in a way that resonates and inspires action. Flipagram is available on iOS, Android, Amazon and Windows platforms.

About Index Ventures

Index Ventures is a multi-stage international venture capital firm that backs exceptional entrepreneurs in more than 20 countries. These leaders are building truly transformative companies that are reshaping the world around us, including: Dropbox, Etsy, Sonos, SoundCloud, Flipboard, King, BlaBlaCar, Squarespace, Lookout, Hortonworks, Pure Storage, Supercell, Funding Circle and many others. For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com.

About Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) partners with the brightest entrepreneurs to turn disruptive ideas into world-changing businesses. The firm has helped build and accelerate growth at pioneering companies like Amazon, Google, Lending Club, Nest, Twitter, Uber, and Mandiant. KPCB offers entrepreneurs years of operating experience, puts them at the center of a vast and influential network, and accelerates their success through expertise and support in recruiting, product design and delivery, business development, strategic partnerships, and brand building. KPCB invests in all stages from seed and incubation to growth companies and operates from offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Beijing. For more information, visit https://www.kpcb.com and follow us @kpcb.

About Sequoia

The Sequoia team helps a small number of daring founders build legendary companies. We spur them to push the boundaries of what's possible. In partnering with Sequoia, companies benefit from our unmatched community and the lessons we've learned over 40 years working with Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, John Morgridge, Jerry Yang, Elon Musk, Larry Page, Jan Koum, Brian Chesky, Drew Houston, Adi Tatarko and Jack Dorsey, among many others. In aggregate, Sequoia-backed companies account for more than 20% of NASDAQ's total value. We're proud that their success also fuels great causes: since 2000 alone we have returned more than $10 billion to non-profits like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT.
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