Zannel Announces $6 Million in Venture Funding

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zannel, Inc. (www.zannel.com) raised $6 million in Series A Financing, led by US Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures. The company’s founders are Adam Zbar, CEO, Braxton Woodham, CTO, Steve Hoffman, COO, and Harry Evans, VP Technology.

“We’ve been fortunate to assemble a team of top industry veterans while flying under the radar”

“We’ve been fortunate to assemble a team of top industry veterans while flying under the radar,” says Adam Zbar, CEO of Zannel. “We are building groundbreaking technology, which we plan to launch in the near future.”

Zannel’s team has extensive experience in entertainment and technology, which includes building the largest mobile media platform in North America, delivering over 100 million ringtones, graphics and other media across tier 1 and 2 US and EU carriers. Zannel’s team was also responsible for launching the first fully-scalable, cross-platform interactive television service used by six major TV networks, and led strategy, content and product development on over 100 media projects.

Chris Rust, General Partner at US Venture Partners, and Brian Garrett, Partner at Palomar Ventures, sit on Zannel’s board of directors. “We feel the timing is right for what Zannel is developing,” says Chris Rust. “There’s an opportunity for incredible growth at the intersection of technology and entertainment.”

“We looked at a lot of companies before we made this investment,” says Brian Garrett, “and we liked Zannel’s long-term roadmap. They’re building out a key piece of infrastructure that will redefine how content is consumed and shared across devices.”

ABOUT ZANNEL:

Adam Zbar, CEO, formerly served as Mobile Media Consultant to Infospace Mobile, Moviso, and Disney MVNO, where he led strategic planning for their next generation applications being launched on tier 1 carriers. Zbar was VP of North American Distribution at WorldRes, where his team served AOL, Yahoo, Verizon, Travelocity, Lodging.com, Delta Airlines, Rand McNally. He was VP Business Development at kpe (Agency.com) where he served Warner Home Video, Fox FX, Mandalay Bay Resort Group, Six Flags and Princess Cruises. Zbar started his career at McKinsey & Company.

Braxton Woodham, CTO, was the CTO at Infospace Mobile. Prior to Infospace, he was VP, Technology at Moviso, where his team developed a mobile media platform powering Cingular, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Alltel, Virgin Mobile, Yahoo, AOL, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung. Prior to Moviso, Braxton was Executive Director of Technology at Sony Digital Media Ventures. Braxton has served as chief architect on projects for Toshiba, Sony Music, Warner Home Video and Times Mirror.

Steve Hoffman, COO, was the Studio Head of Infospace Games. Prior to Infospace, Hoffman was CEO of Spiderdance, which provided interactive TV shows for NBC, MTV (Viacom), Time Warner, GSN, The History Channel (A&E) and Turner. Before that Hoffman was President of LavaMind, where he worked on projects with Kodak, Disney, MetLife, Intel, AdAge. Hoffman was a founding member of the Producers Guild New Media Council and Academy of Television's Interactive Media Group.

Harry Evans, VP Technology, was the Director of Strategic Technology of Infospace Mobile. He was software architect for the V4 Platform, including media delivery, DRM, content management. Evans headed up development of Infospace's rich media application, which will launch on a tier 1 US carrier. Prior to Infospace, Harry Evans was a Software Architect at Elite Information Systems.

ABOUT USVP:

U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm dedicated to helping motivated technology entrepreneurs build world-class companies from humble beginnings into market leaders in their respective industries. USVP focuses on early-stage opportunities in sectors where the partnership has relevant domain expertise, operating experience, and relationships to make a meaningful contribution to the success of the enterprise. These sectors include Internet and content services, wireless technologies and services, data center and enterprise IT infrastructure, semiconductors and optical components, software for enterprise and technical applications, medical devices and biopharmaceuticals. Since its formation in 1981, USVP has invested in more than 400 companies. USVP has helped create about $90 billion in stock market value.

ABOUT PALOMAR:

One of the leading venture capital firms in Southern California, Palomar Ventures focuses on early stage information technology companies that demonstrate the potential for exceptional growth and market leadership. Founded in 1999 by veteran venture capitalists, the partners at Palomar have contributed their strategic insight, network of corporate relationships and team-building skills to assist in creating nearly 50 public companies. With offices in Santa Monica, Irvine, and Palo Alto, and over $525 million under management, Palomar Ventures operates from a founding principle of teamwork to assist portfolio companies in achieving their objectives. The firm is committed to responding rapidly to new ideas and to forming partnerships with the goal of building sustainable companies with outstanding results.