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GumGum Confirms Investment Round

Santa Monica-based GumGum, the online startup headed by Ophir Tanz which licenses photos on a CPM basis to online publishers, confirmed it had raised $2.6M in a venture round Wednesday, telling socalTECH that the Series A-1 round was led by GRP Partners, with participation by First Round Capital. Tanz said that GRP's Mark Suster will be joining the firm's board along with the funding. Other board members at the firm are Michael Jones, COO of MySpace; Howard Morgan of First Round Capital; and Brian Garrett of Crosscut Ventures. Advisors to the firm include David Sacks of Geni (formerly of PayPal) and Vince Thompson (formerly of AOL and Facebook).

"Publishers are really hurting online, and this is a new revenue opportunity for our publishing partners," Tanz told socalTECH, saying that the firm is now reaching over 50 million unique visitors a month, and has been seeing huge growth in adoption of its product. Tanz also said that--despite hitting the venture markets at possibly one of the worst possible times ever to raise money--he never felt he wouldn't be able to raise a round, given the firm's tremendous growth and vision. Tanz said it was just a matter of finding the right partner. "We were happy to find GRP, and we are huge fans of the company, and of Mark Suster specifically," Tanz noted, specifically saying that he was particularly happy to have found a local venture investor.