I have covered mystrands before, and it is nice to see a European company raise $25m

MyStrands have been covered by both ReadWriteWeb and Techcrunch, so the only two additional things I want to add are

Its nice to see a company in Europe get substantial funding

And secondly..

Antonio Asensio of Grupozeta now 25 seems to be someone dynamic and interesting ..

Certainly one to watch.

Official press release follows below

Corvallis (OR), June 18th, 2007.- MyStrands, a leading developer of social recommendation technologies, announced today that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding lead by Antonio Asensio, 25-year-old Spanish media mogul and CEO of Grupo Zeta, the third largest media group in Spain. Existing investors Debaeque and Sequel backed this round which brings total investment in the company to $31 million.

Founded in 2003, MyStrands develops technologies to better understand people's tastes and help them discover things they like and didn't know about already. MyStrands has developed a social recommender engine that is able to provide real-time personalized recommendations of products and services through computers, mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices. Currently, MyStrands employs a team of 50 people.

The future of the web is about personalization. Personalized TV stations, personalized advertising, personalized news, personalized shopping, personalized music and entertainment experiences, wherever you happen to be whether it's at home, on the go, at a friend's house or bar...This is what our team has been focusing hard on and where we are headed with this funding.

In a world of content overload, aggregating and understanding people’s preferences is going to be key to personalizing the way people access and enjoy digital content, says MyStrands’ CEO Francisco J Martin. The new funds will allow us to remain independent and continue investing in developing technologies and new services to help people organize and explore digital media.

Recommendation technologies will allow media companies to deliver personalized content and targeted advertising to consumers, says Antonio Asensio. MyStrands technologies could become the standard for content personalization on the Internet.

About MyStrands
MyStrands develops social recommendation technologies that help people organize and discover digital media, products and services they like. MyStrands’ technologies work across platforms in computers, mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices. More info: www.MyStrands.com/corp

About Antonio Asensio
Antonio Asensio is the Executive President and owner of Grupo Zeta, the third largest media conglomerate in Spain. Now 25 years old, Antonio assumed the control of Grupo Zeta at the age of 19 and since then has expanded and grown the media group. Grupo Zeta owns among other assets 10 newspapers, 16 magazines, TV initiatives, etc.

For further information, please contact:
Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria
VP Communications, MyStrands
+1 541 829 0097
ENDS-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Ajit Jaokar is the CEO of a London based publishing company futuretext focussing on mobility and Digital convergence. Ajit Jaokar also chairs Oxford University's next generation mobile applications panel and is working extensively with mobile web 2.0 i.e. the impact of web 2.0 on mobility and digital convergence. His book Mobile web 2.0 will be released in June 2006. He currently plays an advisory role to a number of mobile start-ups in the UK and Scandinavia and works with the governments and trade missions of a number of countries including South Korea, Ireland and the Faroe Islands. He is also a member of the Web 2.0 Working Group.

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