Yuri Milner, co-founder of the top Russian Internet fund DST, is among the investors in Airtime, a new video chat service to be created by former Napster founders Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning. The news, reported by The Financial Times last Friday, was based on exchanges with Airtime’s founders.
The Airtime concept is derived from the Chatroulette, a web service enabling random webcam conversations, which was created last year by Moscow teenager Andrey Ternovsky.
“When [Chatroulette] grew so quickly, it clearly pointed out some missing piece or unfilled need,” The Financial Times quoted Shawn Fanning as saying.
Airtime users will not connect at random, but the service will still offer the ability to meet new people outside of their existing social group.
“The principal thing we are interested in is breaking outside this rigid notion of the social graph,” Parker said.
The startup raised $8 million from venture firms including Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz as well as business angels Marissa Mayer, Ron Conway and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, in addition to Milner.
Among Milner’s other recent high profile personal investments has been DrChrono, a US medical app publisher.
