Path raises $8.65 million Series A from KPCB

The anti-social network picks up its first big round from Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, others

Path, the social network for close friends and family, announced this week that it has closed an $8.65 million Series A round of financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures, with participation from new investor Digital Garage Japan and previous investor First Round Capital.
 
Both KPCB partner Chi-Hua Chien and Index partner Mike Volpi will be joining the company’s board of directors, along with co-founder Dustin Mierau. The three take seats alongside co-founders Dave Morin (CEO) and Shawn Fanning (of Napster fame).
 
Path has raised $11.2 million in total funding.
 
To match its new monetary expansion, Path is giving its users a new way to share moments (read: pictures) with each other. It’s nothing innovative, just what Morin dramatically calls “the universal Internet communication standard,” or email. That’s right: the groundbreaking social application that introduced the idea of a social network which limits how many friends you can have (to 50) is now enabling its users to email photos to each other. Amazing.
 
Jokes aside, the new feature will likely widen audience reception of media coming from Path users and, more generally, introduce the application to people who think that Facebook is only the social network in the world. It’s also a good way to get Android users thirsting for the app, which I expect will launch in 2011 sooner rather than later.

Users still can’t post to Facebook or Twitter, which is weird because that’s usually the first feature any alternative network or photo app turns on. That will likely change eventually, though: “Don’t count that out in the future. Our focus is on giving users control over who they want to share with and how,” said Morin.

Two million moments have been shared via Path so far.

Part of the new funding will go toward hiring more developers and engineers. Right now the company’s job page lists three engineering positions: one for the company’s cloud infrastructure, one for Web development and one for Android--meaning we might actually be seeing the app expand beyond iOS devices for the first time.