Boring Porn Pinup Site Loses Funding

Back in March 2008, porn pinup site Zivity made headlines after securing a cool $8 million in funding. Now it's making headlines again: this time, because much of its funding (and staff) is walking away.

The situation is not quite so dire as some reports have suggested: the short version is simply that, in the course of its work, Zivity managed to spawn two creations—the TopFans website and "War of the Roses" MySpace application—that were seen as, well, more immediately profitable than Zivity (we can't imagine why). Rather than watch Zivity wither away as its resources were diverted to other projects within the company, the powers that be decided to split the company in two, allowing Zivity to wither away grow at its own pace all on its own.

Porn Valley has long looked to Zivity for clues to mainstreaming: after all, if Zivity was able to managed to secure venture capital, shouldn't the rest of Porn Valley (arguably a more profitable enterprise) manage to interest mainstream money? Alas, it's not that simple: Zivity got the funds because it was a not very risque not-porn site started by Silicon Valley insiders. Very risque enterprises, started by Silicon Valley outsiders (or hey, even insiders) just have too many strikes against them to attract the VCs. But hey—given the fate of Zivity, maybe that's not so bad.

· Zivity (zivity.com)
· Amicable Split for Zivity and VC Investors (dailyfinance.com)