VantagePoint Venture partners has reportedly pulled its $20 million investment in mobile content firm 3Guppies Inc.-a rare move for a venture-capital firm-thereby apparently forcing 3Guppies to shut down its operations.
Calls to 3Guppies were met with a prerecorded message indicating that the company is closed indefinitely. “If you’re calling about new purchases, unfortunately 3Guppies is no longer accepting new orders for premium or unlimited ringtones and screensavers,” according to the message. “We are currently closed.”
VantagePoint Venture Partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that 3Guppies cut most of its 40-person staff, and that VantagePoint Venture Partners is working to sell its majority stake back to the firm’s management team.
The Seattle-based startup netted the $20 million investment in April of 2006 while at the same time acquiring Mophone, a Canadian mobile community company. After rebranding the combined companies as Mixxer, the company went back to the drawing board last spring and rebranded itself for a third time as 3Guppies.
The firm centered its business on a single widget that allows users to disseminate pictures, videos and other content from MySpace pages to mobile phones. The widget is only a one-way channel, distributing content from PCs to mobile phones. Nonetheless, earlier this year the company boasted an audience of more than 750,000 unique visitors per month.
In July, 3Guppies said it would be looking to hit the VC circuit again before the end of the year, but no additional investments have been announced.