SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14, 2009 — Meez (http://www.meez.com), a leading social entertainment community, today announced its merger with Pulse Entertainment, Inc. (http://www.pulse3D.com), a popular provider of avatar messaging services for mobile phones and web sites. In addition, Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Anthem Venture Partners led a new financing round for Meez.
“This is an outstanding deal for Meez,” said John Cahill, CEO of Meez. “Our users are eager to extend their Meez Avatars beyond our games and MeezNation virtual world. The combination of Pulse and Meez will enable personalized Meez messaging, plus the seamless integration of web and mobile Avatars. The new investment will enable the merged companies to continue to grow and to quickly reach profitability.”
“Our firm is really excited about this combination,” said Anthem Venture Partners’ Brian Mesic. “The web/mobile synergies are compelling from both a customer and advertiser perspective. Perhaps more importantly, we believe the two companies together have a critical mass of users and the scale necessary to thrive despite the difficult climate.”
Meez plans to integrate the Pulse messaging services into its portal to offer its eight million users web and mobile messaging capabilities. Meez will continue to support the customers of Pulse’s existing avatar messaging services and offer expanded new products based on Meez’ social entertainment platform. In addition, the new mobile messaging options will help drive the Meez virtual item business and integrated sponsorships by offering a “third screen” option for users and for advertisers.
In conjunction with this acquisition, Meez also announced the appointment of Pulse’s CEO Paul Anderson as President of Meez, and as a member of the Board of Directors. In addition, Anthem Venture Partners’ Brian Mesic will join the Board, along with Meez founder Sean Ryan, Meez CEO John Cahill, and investor Riley McCormack from Tracer Capital Management. Jeff Lipton, former President of Pulse, will continue with Meez as Vice President, Business Development.
ABOUT MEEZ
Meez (http://www.meez.com) is a thriving online social entertainment community where over eight million registered users create 3D avatars, play games, send mobile greetings, and connect with friends in a compelling web-based virtual world. Meez offers a comprehensive virtual item-based economy, premium subscriptions, and integrated sponsorship options successfully used by top brands such as Nike, Sony, Snapple and Cover Girl.
ABOUT PULSE
Pulse Entertainment, Inc. is a leading provider of avatar messaging services for mobile phones and web sites based in San Francisco, California. The Company’s patented Veepers(TM) Media System (VMS) platform is used by major wireless carriers, web-based greeting card providers and consumer brands to create animated messages, 3-D personalized wallpaper, visual voicemail and other rich media applications. Major customers include American Greetings, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and KDDI.
Press Contact:
John Cahill - CEO, Meez
john@corp.meez.com
415-543-6321
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