European social media is humming with Ebuzzing ad platform. The company has raised $25 million in a second round of funding to kick its expansion across Europe.
Based in Luxembourg with 160 people in offices across Europe, Ebuzzing connects users to branded video content via social media. The company was formerly called Wikio Group and has reached about 28.5 million unique visitors in July through its own resources. Those resources include the No. 1 European blogging platform — OverBlog. What is particularly interesting about this funding is that it isn’t just U.S. social media companies that are bringing in large amounts of money.
According to VentureBeat, Pierre Chappaz, chief executive of Ebuzzing, said that the company’s business is booming thanks to the growth of social video advertising. Ebuzzing seeds video commercials into social media. The platform uses its network to connect brands with large communities of bloggers and other social media users. Ebuzzing has exceeded 2,000 international and regional brands as its customers.
The company plans to integrate its Wikio news sites into the Ebuzzing web site.
Ebuzzing investors involve GIMV, a European venture capital fund, and existing investors Lightspeed, Gemini, Solorun and Chappaz. So far, the platform nabbed eight acquisitions in the past 18 months.
The prediction is that the company will likely pursue more merger and acquisition opportunities. Chappaz told VentureBeat that in 2010, the company generated revenue of $15 million and it expects to top $25 million this year. So that’s what all that buzz is about in European social media.
