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Joost, an IPTV based video service, is making news on a regular basis now. The company has now announced that it has raised $45 million from the likes of Sequoia Capital (based in Silicon Valley), Index Ventures (based in London and also investors in Skype), Li Ka-shing (a Hong Kong based business tycoon), Viacom and CBS. All the investers have taken a small minority stake in the company.

The interesting fact about the investment round is that Media corps i.e Viacom and CBS have increased their interests in Joost and have become investors instead of just being content partners. Sequoia and Index on the other hand are industry reknowned and war hardened VCs. Another key fact to note is that with Sequoia in Silicon Valley, Index Ventures in London and Li Ka-shing in Hong Kong, Joost has expanded its reach to 3 continents including the strategic and difficult to enter Chinese market. So all in all the investment round has brought a lot more than just a huge pile of cash into this startup.

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Admob, which claims to be the largest mobile ad platform, has raised $15M in a second round of financing. The round was led by Accel Partners and included the existing investor Sequoia Capital. Admobs launched last year and has served more than 1.6 BN ads. The company claims to top player in this space ahead of Third Screen Media.

Admob and Third Screen Media are in a claims clash as well with Admob claiming to serve 600 million ads in Feb and March and Third Screen Media announcing 175 Million impressions served. Admobs has 1200 publishers in 160 countries. It allows advertisers to target geography, behavior, demography amongst other things.

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Google has announced that Michael Moritz is leaving Google´s Board. Moritz and John Doerr joined the board in May 1999 when Sequoia Capital alongwith Kleiner Perkins invested in the Company.

 Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins each invested $12.5M in Google for a 10% stake. The resulting stocks were worth $2.03BN in 2004 at Google´s IPO price of $85/share. While the funds originally intended to offload all of their investments in the IPO but refrained from it due to investor clashes over valuations. Which offcourse turned out to be a good thing as the Google stock sky rocketed after the IPO. For a more thorough take on this, see Burnham Beat.

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