Amazon Invests in Wikia Series B Financing: Amazon's Value-Added Capital Key to Wikia's Expanding Product Plans

December 8, 2006; 07:57 AM
Wikia, Inc., the leading wiki site for information on thousands of topics written by a community of contributors, today announced it has completed Series B financing with a strategic investment from Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). Amazon.com is the sole investor in Wikia’s second round of funding and is Wikia’s first corporate investor. The amount of Amazon’s investment has not been disclosed.

Wikia received $4 million in Series A funding earlier this year from a prominent group of investors -- Bessemer Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and a select group of angel investors including Marc Andreessen, Josh Kopelman, Joichi Ito, Mitch Kapor, and Ron Conway.

“Amazon has always believed in giving the customer as much information as possible so that they can make the purchase that’s best for them,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Over the years, we’ve enabled customers to post a wealth of information on our sites through features such as Customer Reviews, Customer Image Uploads, Wish Lists, Listmania and Discussion Boards. We want to support the continued growth of sites like Wikia, which has cracked the code for user-generated content.”

Wikia founder and Chairman Jimmy Wales said, “Amazon is a leader in offering customer generated content, and we are delighted to have them as a strategic investor in Wikia. With Amazon’s support, Wikia will be able to expand and serve new communities around the globe on an even greater range of topics.”

Wikia supports the development of the open source software that runs both Wikipedia and Wikia, as well as thousands of other wiki sites. Among other contributions, Wikia plans to enhance the software with improved usability, spam prevention, and community management.

About Wikia, Inc.

Since the site's launch in November 2004, over 400,000 articles on 2,000 topics have been created and edited by over 30,000 registered users in 45 languages. Wikia hosts a broad selection of topics including: Politics at http://campaigns.wikia.com , Psychology at http://psychology.wikia.com , the Lost TV Show at http://lost.wikia.com , the iPod wiki at http://ipod.wikia.com , and Travel Guides at http://world.wikia.com .

Wikia enables groups to share information, news, stories, media and opinions that fall outside the scope of an encyclopedia. Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley launched Wikia in 2004 to provide community-based wikis inspired by the model of Wikipedia -- the free, open source encyclopedia founded by Jimmy Wales.

Wikia is committed to openness, inviting anyone to contribute web content. Authors retain their own copyrights and allow others to freely reuse their content under the GNU Free Documentation License, allowing widespread distribution of knowledge and ideas. For additional information, visit: http://www.wikia.com

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc., (Nasdaq: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as health and personal care, jewelry and watches, gourmet food, sports and outdoors, apparel and accessories, books, music, DVDs, electronics and office, toys and baby, and home and garden.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and www.joyo.com.

As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward Looking Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, limited operating history, government regulation and taxation, payments, fraud, consumer trends, and new business areas. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2005, and all subsequent filings.