Friendster, the most popular social network in the Asian-Pacific region, on Tuesday announced the appointment of Richard Kimber as CEO, as well as $20 million in new VC funding from IDG Ventures and return backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, and Founders Fund.
Mr. Kimber who previously oversaw South Asian operations and business partnerships for Google is filling a position that had been left empty for more than two years.
Friendster’s former president Kent Lindstrom who was the company’s senior executive since 2006 remains with the company as senior vice-president of corporate development
The social network has a strong grip in Asia where it ranks number one in traffic with a claimed 55 million registered users, ahead of world leading social sites Facebook and MySpace.
“In Asia, Friendster is almost twice the size of any other social network,” the company said.
The San Francisco-based company became popular in Asia through friends and family of Asian-Americans users based in California.
The leading social web site in the Asian-pacific region, Friendster has offices in the Philippines and Singapore, but still needs to gain popularity in China, which is dominated by Chinese social-networking web site QQ.
The $20 million in additional funding, which will be used mainly for new offices and employees in Asia, brings the total amount raised by the company to nearly $50 million.
With the new funding Friendster will continue to expand its worldwide footprint and take advantage of its leadership position in Asia Pacific,” said Russ Siegelman, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and chairman of the board for Friendster.
A leadership, which might be at stake, with fierce competitors MySpace and Facebook launching new sites in Asia and heavily promoting the existing ones.
With more than 75 million members worldwide Friendster is the world's 9th largest web site and the 3rd largest social network in terms of traffic according to Internet marketing research company comScore.