14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter keeps on growing and its popularity is always on the rise. But popularity doesn't equal money, as the service still far from generating any kind of revenue. However, it has the luxury of some significant investments that should keep it going for some time to come, and now it looks like the most popular Twitter desktop application, TweetDeck, is following the same model, having secured $2 million in funding from PROfounders Capital, a newly created venture capital fund backed by Brent Hoberman and Michael Birch.
The money will be used to spur further development, helping TweetDeck stay ahead in this highly competitive market. However, another major focus is on finding revenue streams for the app, including recommended and even targeted tweets being integrated with it, though this won't be accomplished by actually inserting “sponsored tweets” in the regular streams or by other invasive methods. TweetDeck raised an initial seed funding of $300,000 in January 2009 from several investors.
PROfounders Capital was founded by leading figures in UK's tech startup world, Michael Birch, the founder of Bebo and BirthdayAlarm, Brent Hoberman, the founder of Lastminute and Mydeco, along with venture capitalists Peter Dubens, founder of Oakley Capital and Freedom4 Group, and Jonathan Goodwin, the founder of LongAcre Partners. The fund was launched last month and Birch, who sold social network Bebo to AOL for $850 million last year, is believed to be the prime investor. PROfounders focuses on smaller investments in new, web-based companies, with funding raging from £500,000 to £2.5 million (roughly $800,000 to $4 million).
TweetDeck has risen to be the leading Twitter client application with a desktop version and a recently launched iPhone app. Development is coming at a rapid pace with TweetDeck and main rival Seesmic constantly one-upping each other. In the several months since it was launched the app added Facebook support and a number of advanced features and support for other services may be added in the future.