Viddy Named Among Top 20 Most Viral Companies of the Decade
January 7, 2014Pando Daily wrote an article recently entitled the Top 20 Most Viral Companies of the Decade (and How They Ultimately Performed). Sitting at #11 was Viddy:
Viddy’s sudden rise and fall can be summed up easily in a chart. But its virality is not the fun part of the story. The fun part is when Viddy raised the “party round to end all party rounds.” Top-tier venture funds like NEA and Khosla weren’t enough. The nation’s premier investment bank Goldman Sachs was not enough. International pop superstar Shakira was not enough. So they brought in World Cup soccer hero Gerard Pique of Spain to round out their $30 million Series B. The valuation was rumored at $370 million. All of this took place only three months after raising a Series A at much lower numbers. But the cops (Facebook) busted up the party, just as the crowds arrived.
The company’s placement on this list; however, is enhanced by the responsible and shocking action that took place next… the founders gave the money back. Or at least most of it, according to Crunchbase, which now lists a much smaller round in place of the $30 million. Oh, and the company has pivoted its branding to be called Supernova. Given their reasonable and responsible handling of events, I think that most of us should wish them good luck as the future plays out. But as for Viddy, it will be counted as a loss.
Viddy certainly has been a wild ride, and while we may not be at the heights we once were, it continues to be an enjoyable journey.
Instagram and Vine have certainly vindicated the ideas and goals of Viddy; that individuals do want a quick, easy and reliable way to share small video snippets.
There are a lot of lessons to take away from looking back on the rise (and sometimes fall) of the giants listed, and it’s an honor to be listed as part of that, really.
As for me, Viddy’s been a huge win. A chance at real start-up experience, seeing first-hand what it means to scale up, sadly seeing what it’s like to scale down, learning Android (I recently released a slightly updated version of Viddy’s Android app, with more to come), learning python (we moved both our API and website to a python backend from .NET) as well as dabbling in Windows 8 development (sadly, this won’t see the light of day any time soon).
Plus, who can pass up sunsets like this a quick walk away?
