A group of foreign investors led by Internet entrepreneur and investor, Bill Marquez has offered to purchase a majority stake in RedCarpetMonday®, an Orlando based social business network for $6.2 million. Marquez was the co-founder of Netster.com, the world's 8th largest search engine in terms of web traffic.
RedCarpetMonday® is a sophisticated, invitation-only social business network that has quickly become the spotlight for the 'Who's Who' of Florida's most successful professionals and entrepreneurs. Events attract big name corporate sponsors like the Orlando Magic, Classic Audi, and EliteJets. The exclusive website is a community where users connect and cultivate business relationships.
With the rising popularity of niche social business networks, Marquez revealed his interest to add RedCarpetMonday® to his Internet portfolio. "Social Networking is the future of the Internet for years to come. RedCarpetMonday.com targets high net worth business professionals, which make users more valuable than younger based networks like Myspace and Facebook" said Marquez.
In September of 2006, the most popular social networking site on the Internet, MySpace, was purchased by News Corp for $580 million, the company is run by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Business Week speculates that Facebook, the popular college network started by 23 year old Mark Zuckerman has already rejected a $750 million buy out offer, but is currently entertaining a $500 million investment purchase by Microsoft for 5% ownership of Facebook, which would value the company at $10 billion. Another popular networking site, LinkedIn has attracted buyout attention from some big media players as well.
One of RedCarpetMonday's biggest competitors in this elite online business space is aSmallWorld.net, founded by Erik Wachtmeister. aSmallWorld is similar to RedCarpetMonday in that to become a member, you must be invited by a current member. The site currently has over 130,000 members including Paris Hilton, Naomi Campbell and James Blunt.
RedCarpetMonday® President Ryan Totka said, "There is plenty of room for growth in this space and we plan on making RedCarpetMonday® the premier destination on the Internet for elite business networking. Our goal is to bridge the gap between building successful business relationships offline and online. We continue to roll out new features that make this possible."
Co-Founder Keith Ingersoll said, "We have started to attract interest from different investment groups around the country, as they see the potential value in a high net worth network like RedCarpetMonday®. While Myspace and Facebook are strictly Internet based, RedCarpetMonday's exclusive events add a real life networking experience and provide extended value to our sponsors. Before we make any fast decisions about selling any interest, we are going to weigh our options and do what is best to grow our company."
RedCarpetMonday® was started in May of 2006 by Ryan Totka, Keith Ingersoll and Ernie Falco III, at which time, all three Orlando entrepreneurs, were under the age of 30.
For more information, visit www.RedCarpetMonday.com or call Jaime Niemann at 407-650-3700 or Bill Marquez at 407-461-0857.