The Next Web

JS-Kit Raises $ 3.6M and welcomes Chris Saad as advisor

Written on October 14, 2008 – 4:59 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Khris Loux is a special guy. He’s one of the most optimistic and energetic persons I’ve met. That was during The Next Web conference, last April. He gave a keynote about open standards and interviewed Mr. DataPortability, Chris Saad, on stage. They certainly connected, and not just on the white couch: industry visionary Saad has joined Js-Kit as a Strategic Advisor.

But Loux’s positive attitude not just serves his network, he also managed to close a second round of funding in a time that everybody seems too busy worrying about the credit crunch.

JS-Kit’s Series B was led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Series A Investor TEF3. With the financial injection of $3 million, total funding of JS-Kit comes down to $4.8 million.

Thanks social media revolution, time for the next level

Next to the new strategic adviser, the funding of the social widgets provider has already enabled expansion of the development team to a dozen engineers and a quadrupling of the size of the data center. Loux: “We are now at 12 engineers and plan to continue to grow that team to support our growing user base.”

Loux also says he “has been proud to be part of the social media revolution” and that he “looks forward to taking things to the next level in the coming months and years”. Meaning that JS-Kit will also expand its commercial activities to achieve profitability in the medium term.

Nice-looking stats

When looking at both the statistics of Quintcast (cookies installed in the US) and Compete (visitors from the US), anyone can tell JS-Kit’s reach is increasing. Partly thanks to partnerships with major media players like WorldNow (good for 19 million potential users). When taking that in account, it’s actually not that surprising that JS-Kit keeps investing, financial crisis or not.

Photo credit: Anne Helmond. More information on Techcrunch now.

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chris saad, dataportability, funding, js-kit, khris loux, social widgets