Wallstrip Raises Over Half a Million
Posted on January 6, 2007
Wallstrip, a witty video blog covering the stock market, has raised over half a million in funding according to GigaOm. Wallstrip is hosted by Lindsay Campbell. Over fifty Wallstrip shows have been produced and creator Howard Lindzon has a recent post looking back on the first 50 shows.
Wallstrip focuses on a different high performing stock each week. Past shows have covered Chiptole, Adobe, The Knot, Dolby, Electronic Arts, Akamai and Whole Foods. The shows contain a little humor as well that ties in with the products the company being featured produces. For example, host Lindsay wears orange crocs in the Crocs episode and she is smoking a cigarette in the Altria video.
Lindzon told NewTeeVee that he will use the funding to create more shows and that he is currently more focused on building an audience than making money.
Lindzon, a longtime investment advisor and fund manager, says he created the short-form show to provide an alternative to unnecessarily complicated stock market analysis. He claims the show - which he alternately describes as "Cramer with breasts" and "buy high, sell high" - currently receives about 10,000 views per episode.It will be interesting to see what Lindzon comes up with next. Right now it is clear that he has created at least one video blog hit with Wallstrip. Wallstrip's host Lindsay Campbell is also on the road towards online video stardom.Wallstrip's friends-and-family investment round included venture capitalist Fred Wilson6. As for making money, Lindzon said the show is focused on building an audience for the time being. It currently uses limited post-roll ads via Revver.
With the funding, Wallstrip plans to create five more original shows on the topics of finance and venture capital. Lindzon says, whereas Wallstrip is keeping things upbeat and happy with the all-time-high theme, "not mucking around with companies like Dell," at least one of the other shows will tackle the fact that stocks don't always go up.