CollegeWikis Receives $2 Million in Funding

HighBAR Ventures Leads Financing Round for Group Messaging and Information Platform

NEW YORK. CollegeWikis, the leading group messaging and information platform for students by students, announced that it has closed a $2 million funding round led by HighBAR Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm founded by Bill Joy, Andreas Bechtolsheim and Roy Thiele-Sardia. Richmond Management, eCoast Angel Network and Boston Harbor Angels also participated. Thiele-Sardia will join CollegeWikis’ Board of Directors as part of this financing.

Since its launch last year, CollegeWikis has become the group messaging platform of choice for over 50,000 students in more than 200 colleges, with over 600,000 topics. On CollegeWikis, students can join groups for their school, courses, dorms, and more; then send and follow group messages to peers. Those messages then become wiki-editable pages on the site, providing information that is always accurate and searchable by others.

“CollegeWikis has demonstrated tremendous momentum in gaining acceptance within the highly sought-after college market,” said Roy Thiele-Sardia, partner at HighBAR Ventures. “HighBAR Ventures is pleased to support CollegeWikis’ efforts in providing a best-of-breed messaging technology platform to help college students share, access and archive information relevant to their community.”

Like Wikipedia, CollegeWikis is an information resource, not a social network. CollegeWikis leverages groups to provide “information for your community” – including relevant topics for students ranging from local info to admissions, jobs, courses, events, where to buy books, and more. Topics include how to survive freshman year, the best restaurants in Palo Alto and even the hottest iPhone apps.

Founder Joe DiPasquale came up with the idea while a student at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. “We had an email list for our class year, through which hundreds of messages were sent per week. But students faced two problems: the absence of group lists that we really wanted, like for our dorm or courses; and all the great content sent out over the list was soon buried in people’s email inboxes. CollegeWikis provides these groups and captures their content. It’s quickly becoming the ultimate information source for students.”

Advisory Board chairman Vince Han, co-founder of Ruckus Network and former EIR at Battery Ventures, said, “With a strong management team and world-class investors, CollegeWikis is poised to deliver the highly sought-after college demographic to advertisers. This site is immediately compelling for students, as they value each other as the most trusted source for information. The combination of group messaging with the wiki platform is ideal for this tech-savvy demographic.”

CollegeWikis is free. To join the wiki for your school, go to www.collegewikis.com.

About HighBAR Ventures

HighBAR Ventures is the early stage venture capital firm founded by Bill Joy, Andreas Bechtolsheim, and Roy Thiele-Sardia. Its founders have deep roots in technology investing and a proven track record of building successful companies. HighBAR invests in seed and early stage companies developing infrastructure technology. www.highbarventures.com

About Richmond Management

Richmond Management is a global early-stage venture firm focused on technology-enabled services and mobile applications. Richmond was founded by the co-founder of Endeavor.org, the leading global non-profit focused on supporting high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Representative investments include Obopay, Voxiva, Skydeck and jaxtr with prior successes including Salesforce.com, aQuantive and Athleta.com. www.richmondmgt.com

About the eCoast Angel Network

The eCoast Angel Network is a group of 28 like-minded investors, founded in July, 2000, and focused on early-stage companies involved with advanced technology, e-commerce, health care and industrial products. www.ecoastangels.com

About Boston Harbor Angels

Boston Harbor Angels is a group of 36 angel investors including successful entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and venture capitalists who invest opportunities in high-growth early stage companies. Since 2004, the members have invested in 25 companies. www.bostonharborangels.com

About CollegeWikis

Founded in 2007, CollegeWikis is the leading group messaging and information platform for students by students. The CollegeWikis web site and messaging platform provides access to immediate and trusted community information. CollegeWikis is backed by HighBAR Ventures, Richmond Management, eCoast Angel Network and Boston Harbor Angels. For more information visit: www.collegewikis.com.