Van den Ende & Deitmers takes stake in Hyves

The venture capital firm Van den Ende & Deitmers has acquired a substantial minority interest in the Dutch Internet phenomenon Hyves. Hyves is the number 1 social network in the Netherlands and the most visited Dutch website with 6.5 million unique visitors per month. In addition, last year. Hyves was awarded as the most innovative company. Hyves was founded in 2004 by Floris Rost van Tonningen, Koen Kam and Raymond Spanjar. Last year the management team was complemented with Marc de Vries and Yme Bosma. Since its foundation the company has grown immensely and has become the most visited Dutch website:

– Hyves is responsible for 5% of total internet pages viewed in the Netherlands
– 150 million page views per day making it the busiest Dutch website
– 150 million monthly sent messages through its site
– 15 million monthly mobile page views making it the busiest Dutch mobile website
– 600 million pictures viewed per month
– Monthly reach of 72.4% in the 13- to-34 age group, 53.6% in age group 35-49 and 22.6% in age group over 50
– Over 6 million members including many politicians including Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and celebrities (e.g. Tiësto)
– Continues to grow its user base and is adding around 300.000 new members per month

In 2005, prior to co-founding Van den Ende & Deitmers with Joop van den Ende, Hubert Deitmers had personally invested in Hyves: ‘As a minority shareholder I’ve been involved with Hyves for over three years now and witnessed its spectacular growth from a small social network to a phenomenon changing the Dutch media landscape. Today Hyves reaches more people than the largest national TV broadcaster, radio station and newspaper in the Netherlands. In addition to increasing its user base, the ‘Hyvers’ are also increasing the intensity of their use in the form of the number of visits, pages viewed and overall use of other applications. Joop van den Ende and I are delighted to support Hyves in its future development through our Crossmedia Fund and hope to contribute to the many innovative ways that Hyves enriches its members’ social lives.’

Raymond Spanjar, Hyves’ Chief Hyving Officer: ‘Hubert became a shareholder shortly after we founded Hyves and he has been very involved with the company. His advice and network has helped moving Hyves forward substantially. With the completion of this transaction we are very pleased to add the support of Joop van den Ende and the team at Van den Ende & Deitmers to the Hyves team.’