Depending on how you look at it, the news that widget-maker RockYou has just raised $35m is either a sign that boundless hope continues to rein supreme in Web 2.0 financing, or that at least some degree of caution is creeping into the sector.
Like Slide, which raised $50m on a $500m valuation at the end of last year, RockYou is only just at the start of trying to work out how (if) it can make money from its little “social” applications, which users can embed into their Facebook page (as we reported before, these widgets don’t make much money yet.) The fact that RockYou has now raised more than $50m in all points to the high level of confidence that where audiences go in social media, advertisers will eventually follow.
A key question remains unanswered, though: what valuation did this latest financing round put on RockYou? There had been talk that the company had put a $400m price tag on itself and was seeking to raise much more, so the size of this round suggests it has had to scale back those expectations quite sharply.
