PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - January 31, 2011) - IMVU, an online social entertainment destination where members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create and play games with their friends, today announced that IMVU has been recognized as a Red Herring Global 100 Tech Startup after having been named a Red Herring North America 100 Tech Startup in June 2010. IMVU is also proud to announce and the promotion of Kevin Henshaw to vice president of business development and the continued growth of its virtual goods catalog.
"Red Herring's editorial staff selected IMVU as a Global 100 Tech Startup based on its strong performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy and market penetration," said David Fleck, vice president of marketing at IMVU, Inc.
IMVU is also proud to announce the promotion of Kevin Henshaw to vice president of business development. Kevin joined IMVU in July 2007 as director of International business development. Prior to IMVU, Kevin spent over a decade with Adobe Systems, where he held a variety of sales, sales operations and product development roles. While based in Asia with Adobe, Kevin opened the company's offices in Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing. Later he moved to Sydney, Australia where he held an Asia-Pacific wide sales management role.
"Kevin Henshaw has led the explosive growth of our indirect revenue with strategic partners," said Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of IMVU, Inc. "He is an outstanding role model within IMVU, and we're thrilled both to recognize him and to increase his responsibility."
IMVU is also announcing a few updated statistics for its virtual goods catalog, the world's largest. IMVU's virtual goods are crowdsourced, meaning that its members ("Creators") -- not employees -- create the virtual goods that are purchased by other members.
- The virtual goods catalog now has 6,000,000 items.
- The catalog grows by 7,000 new items every 24 hours.
- More than 50,000 Creators sold items to other members in the last 30 days.
"Crowdsourcing the creation of virtual goods is a superior model," said Lee Clancy, senior vice president of product management and general manager of direct revenue at IMVU. "It gives consumers infinitely more and fresher choices of what to buy, making the customization of one's avatar much more personal and fun. We love our Creators!"
The U.S. virtual goods market will reach $2.1 billion overall in 2011 according to Inside Network, an independent research firm focused on the social gaming ecosystem.
About IMVU, Inc.
IMVU, Inc. (http://www.imvu.com) is an online social entertainment destination where members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create and play games with their friends. IMVU has reached over 50 million registered users, 10+ million unique visitors per month and a $40+ million annualized revenue run rate. IMVU has the world's largest virtual goods catalog of more than six million items, almost all of which are created by its own members. IMVU is available in multiple languages on both Windows PC and Mac platforms, and for mobile users via its IMVU 2Go iPhone application, available in the Apple App Store. Founded in 2004, IMVU is backed by venture investors Menlo Ventures, Allegis Capital, Bridgescale Partners and Best Buy Capital and is located in Palo Alto, CA. IMVU is hiring for many positions, log onto http://www.imvu.com/jobs for more information.
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