UPDATED 23:02 EDT / MARCH 18 2015

NEWS

The company that powers those annoying Facebook quizzes just raised $16 million Series B

playbuzzViral content sharing startup PlayBuzz, Ltd. has raised $16 million in Series B in a round led by 83North Ltd. that included Saban Capital Group, Inc. and previous investors Carmel Ventures and FirstTime Ventures.

Founded in 2012, PlayBuzz is a content platform that enables publishers, marketers, bloggers and others to create, distribute and embed quizzes, polls, lists and similar content.

If you’ve never heard of the company before, there’s a very good chance you would have seen its work before, as it powers most of those annoying quizzes you regularly see shared on Facebook; according to Newswhip, in January 2015, PlayBuzz was the most shared site on the Mark Zuckerberg-founded social network, significantly ahead of The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

The site claims it attracts more than 80 million unique visitors a month, and unlike the likes of BuzzFeed, it doesn’t create its own content versus allowing users and other publishers to create content using its services. Sites and publications using its services include AOL Inc., The Sun, Daily Telegraph (UK,) MTV, Vox, and many, many others.

Asked by CapitalNewYork about the amount of money taken, founder Shaul Olmert said PlayBuzz took “a very reasonable amount of money,” before adding, “We took as much money as we think we need … In all honesty, it is tempting to some degree to take much more money just because you can, just because it’s out there. … We want to be honest and sort of follow a realistic trail of how much can we possibly grow without losing our focus.”

The company is based in Israel and has an office in New York. Including the new round, PlayBuzz has raised $18.3 million to date over three rounds (including a seed round.). Prior investors who did not participate in the new round include Rutledge Vine Capital, TheTime and Oded Vardi.

PlayBuzz said it would use the new round to increase its headcount, relocate its main office to New York, and open offices in Europe and Asia.


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