Ban.jo Raises $16M Series B Round Led By Balderton Capital

If you haven’t heard of Banjo, you should check it out, the startup that has created and organized the largest collection of social signals organized by time, location, and content. What the heck does that mean? It means that you can virtually go to an place or event and see what tons of other people are seeing, live. You can get a feel for how this works in the video below:

The startup began when the founder, Damien Patton was at the airport trying to meet a friend and like most startups the idea and vision has evolved dramatically over time. Now you can experience a taste of SXSW or check-out the Flamenco Festival in London, all from the comfort of your smartphone.

Well Banjo has been on an incredible journey and today marks a major milestone as the company announces a $16M round. Vegas Tech fund partner Andy White tweeted this a bit earlier which is where I initially learned about the raise.

andy-white-tweet

One interesting note on Banjo, they have built their brand and made it into series B territory branding on a .JO domain name. Haven’t heard of .JO? Neither have most people. As I wrote earlier this week, app-makers really aren’t that concerned with getting their .COM and it sure doesn’t impact their ability to be successful. Banjo is an app and their success has to do with people downloading and using their app, not ranking well on Google for the word Banjo. With a $16M series B raise it is clear that investors see the value here and also aren’t that concerned about the company not owning their .COM.

We are moving into a brave new world where .COM still has great value but startups have now realized that they don’t need a .COM to build a great company. Let’s face it, a company branding on Ban.jo just raised $16M and it was announced on Launch.co, welcome to 2014, the world has changed…

Huge congrats to the entire team at Banjo, I can’t wait to see what’s next!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton