BuzzCity, which develops global wireless communities and consumer services, has secured $10 million (5.5 million) growth capital financing from new investor Naspers, a South Africa-based multinational media company.
BuzzCity will use the financing to extend market share for its core property, myGamma.com and its network of sites. The company says its growth strategy will continue to focus on growing the membership base of myGamma; developing more user-generated content through member services and applications; investing in applications aimed at maximizing partnership opportunities; and growing myGammas portfolio of advertising clients.
The growth opportunity for off-deck services continues to grow globally, says BuzzCity CEO, KF Lai. Weve seen phenomenal growth in markets in South Asia and Africa and in the coming year, we expect to see this growth to include markets in Europe and USA. The common footprints we have make this a strategic relationship for developing our media properties, particularly in South Africa, India and Thailand. We look forward to working closely with the group to ramp up our growth.
During the first six months of 2008, traffic to the myGamma network of partner sites has exceeded 6 billion pageviews. Juniper Research recently predicted that the number of mobile phone users globally will increase from 577 million to 1.7 billion by 2013, with applications such as social networking and user-generated content being key drivers for this growth. Ian Chard, Analyst at Juniper Research, says:
The market opportunity for BuzzCity is clear. BuzzCitys myGamma community has made stunning headway in the mobile social networking space, reaching 2.7 million users across 70 countries. As an off-deck application, it has successfully applied the D2C business model in an operator-dominated market, and established a strong advertising base that hit 1.7 billion paid ad impressions in July 2008 alone.
Furthermore, myGamma serves two distinct audiences: the newly-connected emerging middle class in developing markets, and blue-collar users in developed regions making it a shining example of how the social web can span demographic, as well as geographic divides.