Loic Le Meur’s Seesmic raises 6 million

Loic Le Meur at the Seesmic Offices

Seesmic, the video conversation start-up by Loic Le Meur has just raised a cool 6 million dollars from an impressive list of investors. There are a lot of things I don’t understand about Seesmic but I am afraid to write about them because obviously I must be stupid. I mean, if Michael Arrington, Steve Case and Ron Conway all DO seem to get it, there can’t be any other explanation.

Can you imagine we will be chatting to each other in pre-recorded video messages? Do YOU use iChat video on a regular basis? Can you imagine using it in a Walkie Talkie kinda way where you talk first, then upload your message, then wait for someone to record their message which you then have to watch after which you can record a new message? Or maybe this whole video chatting this is just a cover for another business that we haven’t heard from yet?

No, it must be me. Or maybe these people just REALLY liked Loic and that is the reason why they invested 6 million. Either way, here is the press release:

Seesmic Raises $6 Million to Power the World’s Video Conversations

A-List investors are led by Niklas Zennström’s Atomico and include Steve Case, Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, and Reid Hoffman

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – February 14, 2008 – Seesmic (www.seesmic.com), the highly anticipated new start-up from Loic Le Meur, today announced that it has raised $6 million from internationally renowned investors. The investment is lead by Atomico – an investment group founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The complete list of investors is:

* Michael Arrington – Founder, TechCrunch
* Steve Case – Co-Founder and former CEO and Chairman, AOL
* Jeff Clavier – Managing Partner, SoftTech VC
* Ron Conway – Early investor, Google
* Steve Garfield – Pioneering video blogger
* Dan Gillmor – Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship
* Reid Hoffman – Founder, LinkedIn
* Michael Parekh – Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
* Mark Pincus – Co-Founder and former Chairman and CEO, SupportSoft
* Ariel Poler – Founder and former CEO, IPRO and Topica
* Jeff Pulver – Chairman and Founder, Pulver.com
* Martin Varsavsky – Founder, FON

Until now, online communication has lacked personality, being limited to text (IM, SMS, email). Seesmic changes that, bringing conversation alive through video, allowing users to be seen and heard and to broadcast themselves. Still in closed alpha, Loic is building Seesmic in the open, with the help and guidance of the Seesmic community. Through his daily video blog loic.tv and the “feature request” function on the Seesmic site, Loic and his team gather suggestions and solicit feedback from the community about the platform and its functionality.

“I’m thrilled to have such an unprecedented group of high-profile business leaders, entrepreneurs, and angel investors validate the potential for Seesmic,” said Loic Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic. “This significant investment will enable us to launch a site built by and for our community, incorporating the products and features they’ve told us they want through their Seesmic conversations.”

“Seesmic has grasped the opportunity to evolve the way people express themselves and converse online. Theirs is an exciting vision and I look forward to supporting the team,” said Niklas Zennström, Co-Founder of Skype.

“At last, the Internet is really social: you can see and hear people express their ideas and thoughts, you can join in, and you can make new friends. With Seesmic, everyone can participate in live conversations rich with personality, bought to life through video,” commented Ron Conway.

About Seesmic

Seesmic brings online conversation to life through video. Straight from their webcams, Seesmic enables users to easily post videos of their thoughts and ideas and participate in video conversations with the world.

Founded by Loic Le Meur – France’s best-known blogger, entrepreneur, founder of the largest European web event LeWeb3, and Internet Advisor to French President Sarkozy – Seesmic is changing the way people converse on the Web.

What Seesmic’s community says about Seesmic:

“The difference between YouTube and Seesmic is that YouTube puts video at the center, whereas Seesmic puts people at the center,” Stephanie Booth, Lausanne, Switzerland’s best known blogger.

Source: Valleywag

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Here is a Demo of Seesmic from Loic himself at Demo:And, in case you missed it, the infamous review of Seesmic by Loren Feldman.