Investors Dig Into Hot Potato
Hot Potato, a social networking startup focused on connecting friends and fans through live events, has raised $1.42 million in first-round funding. First Round Capital and RRE Ventures co-led the deal, with Josh Kopelman of FRC and Will Porteus of RRE taking board seats. Also on the Hot Potato board is Allen Morgan, the former Mayfield Fund partner who now operates as an angel investor. Other investors include: Ron Conway, Betaworks, Ken Lerer (independent of Betaworks), Chris Dixon and Founders Collective. Strauss Zelnick, Scott Banister, Ben Lerer Josh Kushner and Zach Klein. Brooklyn-based Hot Potato is the brainchild of Justin Shaffer, who had spent the past seven years working on digital media initiatives for Major League Baseball. On his LinkedIn page, Shaffer describes the company thusly: We’re building tools for real-time social collaboration amongst groups who share an interest in any event or experience as it’s happening. Whether checking in, recording your perspective, or just enjoying others contributions, it’s more fun to participate in events with Hot Potato. "What we're building is the intersection of Facebook and Twitter, but around live events in real-time," Shaffer explains. "Facebook and Twitter are personal monologues telling the story of me, whereas we're building an environment of collective storytelling by people at an event, or watching an event."
