Congratulations Showyou!

Music video giant Vevo today announced its acquisition of True portfolio company Showyou. Showyou Founder Mark Hall and Showyou’s highly talented engineering and design team are joining Vevo to help them build their next-generation video offerings. A big congratulations from all of us at True to Mark and his team, including Andy Forssell, Showyou’s CEO for the last year, as well as original Showyou Co-Founders Scott Persinger and Spencer Miles.

I first met Mark about 10 years ago. He had recently left his role as the head of Real Networks Europe in London and moved his family to San Francisco to start a new video company. I greatly enjoyed getting to know Mark, and in 2006 True ended up funding his startup Vodpod. They created a video-sharing network that grew to millions of users and was sold to Lockerz in 2011. Meanwhile, the iPad had launched, and Mark and his team had built an app for it as a side project—a social video player called Showyou. After selling Vodpod, they decided to keep going as a startup and switched their focus to Showyou. It started out as an app that “showed you” a continuous stream of videos from your Twitter friends and grew to a full-blown video network that works across any device—mobile, web and TV. Mark and his team have shown tremendous ingenuity and built a world-leading video platform with a tiny startup team—Vevo is smart and lucky to have them join their efforts. Congratulations again to Mark, and thank you for being a great Founder and contributor to the True platform!

Read more on the Showyou blog.