Fast-growing video communication and messaging platform provider Tinychat, which started out with disposable chat rooms back in early 2009, has just raised $1.5 million in funding, TechCrunch has learned.
The startup has confirmed the financing round, a convertible note, which included capital injections from angel investor Naval Ravikant and A-Grade, the investment vehicle of Madonna manager Guy Oseary, actor Ashton Kutcher and billionaire Ron Burkle).
As if that wasn’t enough, Sean Combs (yes, Diddy) also put up some cash, as did other undisclosed individual investors, some of them also famous artists.
For Tinychat, this is strategic money, helping the fledgling company get inroads with the Hollywood crowd that could potentially drive much of its further growth.
Tinychat co-founder Dan Blake wasn’t too keen on sharing more details about the funding, but did acknowledge that they’ve raised money to scale operations. The startup is in the process of moving its employees, about 10 people give or take, to a bigger office in New York.
Blake did share some interesting stats, highlighting the company’s staggering growth. According to Blake, Tinychat currently peaks at around 35,000 concurrent users per second, as many as there are new users signing up every day. The site gets visited about 20 million times per month, and there are 100+ servers keeping the system afloat today.
I’m told the company is closing in on an even larger financing round at a hefty valuation, so keep watching this space for more information.