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Meebo has raised $71.0M across 5 funding rounds.
Key people at Meebo.
Meebo has raised $71.0M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Meebo provided a web-based instant messaging and social networking service. The platform consolidated various instant messaging protocols, enabling users to connect with contacts across services like Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, and Google Talk from a single browser interface. This offered a unified communication experience, streamlining online social interactions.
Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry founded Meebo in September 2005. They recognized fragmented online communication and aimed to create a streamlined, web-based solution for instant messaging. Their insight was to simplify social connections, moving beyond desktop applications to a more integrated web experience.
Meebo served users seeking consolidated web-based communication tools and personal website operators. The company’s vision aimed to enhance user engagement across the internet by offering integrated, real-time communication. It sought to establish a pervasive standard for online social connectivity.
Key people at Meebo.
Meebo has raised $71.0M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Meebo's investors include Khosla Ventures, Accel, Sequoia Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Jafco Ventures, Time Warner, Tim Draper, True Ventures.
Meebo has raised $71.0M across 5 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $28.0M Series D in December 2010.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 1, 2010 | $28M Series D | Khosla Ventures | Accel, Sequoia Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Jafco Ventures, Time Warner | Announced |
| Apr 1, 2008 | $25M Series C | — | Accel, Sequoia Capital | Announced |
| Jan 17, 2007 | $9M Series B | TIM Draper | — | Announced |
| Nov 1, 2005 | $4M Series A | Sequoia Capital | Accel, True Ventures | Announced |
| Sep 1, 2005 | $5M Series U | — | True Ventures | Announced |
Google integrated Meebo's team into its social networking efforts, sunsetting the Meebo Bar in June 2013 to prioritize Google Sign-In and plugins, effectively ending Meebo as an independent entity.[2]
Meebo was founded in September 2005 in Mountain View, California, by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry.[1][4] The idea emerged from the need for a unified web-based instant messaging client, allowing users to access multiple services (like AIM, Yahoo, and MSN) without desktop software, amid growing browser adoption.[1][4]
Early traction came from its core Messenger product, which remained available post-launch. The company pivoted to social and advertising tools, launching the Meebo Bar for seamless sharing and monetization on websites. By 2011, it had scaled to over 250 million users and $70 million in funding, culminating in Google's 2013 acquisition to bolster Google+.[1][2][3][4]
Meebo rode the early 2000s wave of web 2.0 and AJAX-driven apps, addressing IM fragmentation as social media exploded (Facebook's rise, Twitter's launch).[1] Timing was ideal: browsers like Firefox gained traction, enabling rich web apps before mobile dominance shifted paradigms.[4]
It influenced publisher monetization and sharing ecosystems, prefiguring modern widgets like Facebook's Like button or Twitter Cards. Market forces like ad-supported social tools favored Meebo, but competition from native platform integrations (e.g., Google's own services) led to its 2013 sunset. Meebo's acquisition highlighted Big Tech's strategy of absorbing talent to fortify networks like Google+, shaping consolidation in social infrastructure.[1][2]
Meebo's story ended with its 2013 integration into Google, with products retired to focus on broader tools like Sign-In—its legacy lives in evolved sharing features across Google services.[2] No independent revival is evident post-acquisition.[1][2]
Looking ahead, Meebo exemplifies early social widgets' ephemerality amid platform lock-in; future trends like decentralized social protocols or AI-driven sharing could echo its unification ethos, but under new players. Its influence endures in how web publishers embed social layers today, tying back to its roots as a bridge across siloed digital communication.[1][4]
