Everloop raises $3.1 million for kid network

Stealing tons of potential users from Facebook, Everloop provides a safe haven for young socialites

Everloop, a social network for kids aged under 13, announced Monday that it has raised $3.1 million in funding from vFormation, Band of Angels, Envoi Ventures, Richard Chino (formerly of Overture), Wayne Goodrich (of Apple), Deena Burnett-Bailey (of Angels of Hope) and others.

The new capital follows a $2.5 million seed round from earlier this year.

Created by three entrepreneurial moms, Everloop perfectly fills the niche for a social networking site for youngsters, a niche left empty by Facebook, whose nearly 700 million members worldwide are supposed to be at least 13 and older.

In the United States, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a federal law designed so that online services catering to that younger audience are more responsible than they would be when dealing with adult users.

Fully COPPA-compliant, Everloop enables kids to create and customize their own user profiles, connect with friends and stay busy by picking from an arsenal of over 1,500 games. As a healthy alternative to real cyberbullying, the site lets kids prank each other with “Goobs,” harmless virtual pies or toilet paper rolls you can throw at other users. The Everloop Mod Squad looks out for inappropriate content too, so kids don’t have to deal with bullies and bad language.

Each child’s account is connected with a parent, who can monitor their child’s activity and turn certain features, like chat and email, on or off.

In addition to the funding, Everloop also announced that it has made several executive appointments.

Sandy Barger, who previously served at Walt Disney Studios, has joined as chief marketing officer. Tobin Trevarthen, with experience in sales at Time Warner and AOL, joins as vice president of business development. And Alan Goodman, who has worked with big and small media since the 1980s, will now serve as creative advisor.

“The Internet offers many great opportunities for children,” said Barger. Everloop provides a much needed safe site where kids can connect, collaborate and learn.”

It will be interesting going forward to see how Facebook deals with sites like Everloop. I really can’t see Mark Zuckerberg happy with another site stealing a huge user base right under its nose. He already said that he wants social to be important for education from an early age.

This could be as big as the China problem, which literally leaves a billion potential users at stake. Maybe Facebook will eventually make a COPPA-compliant section of its site that somehow interacts with the main Facebook. That’s just speculation though.