founded october 2005 headquarters new york ny u.s. products technology platforms for the media industry ; formerly wiki hosting revenue venture capital funded owner function x number of employees 65 website www.wetpaint.com wetpaint is an internet company and a wholly owned subsidiary of function x . founded in 2005 wetpaint both publishes the website wetpaint entertainment focused on entertainment news and develops a proprietary technology platform the social distribution system that is used to provide analytics for its own website as well as other online publishers . wetpaint began as a wiki farm hosting wikis using its own proprietary software before moving into hosting of professional content in 2010 ; wetpaint s wiki hosting component was spun off completely in 2013 . history edit wetpaint was originally called wikisphere and begun as a wiki farm hosting wikis using proprietary software . it was co founded in october 2005 by ben elowitz who had previously co founded the online jewelry retailer blue nile inc. in december 2005 the company and site were renamed to wetpaint . 1 in october 2005 the company received its initial a round of venture capital funding of usd5 .25 million from trinity ventures and frazier technology ventures . 2 wetpaint closed a usd9 .5 million b round of funding in january 2007 adding accel partners to the list of investors . 3 wetpaint closed a series c round of venture capital funding of usd25 million in may 2008 . investors included accel partners trinity ventures and frazier technology ventures . wetpaint was named by time magazine as one of the 50 best websites of 2007 . 4 in march 2008 wetpaint added social networking features . 5 in july 2009 wetpaint laid off 15 of their 56 employees . 6 an additional 9 employees including co founders kevin flaherty and alex berg were laid off in december . 7 the company also decided to refocus the website on professionally created content . both steps were taken as a result of declining online ad revenue . 7 during late 2010 wetpaint re launched its main homepage at wetpaint.com as the wetpaint entertainment platform a set of new online tv fan destination sites geared toward the female 18 34 demographic . 8 the wiki farm was renamed wikis by wetpaint and was moved to the domain wetpaintcentral.com . in december 2011 the company announced the wetpaint social distribution system . 9 in december 2013 wetpaint was acquired by viggle 10 an entertainment rewards platform which was shortly renamed to its former name function x . references edit startup wikisphere changes its name to wetpaint . seattle post intelligencer . 2005 12 01 . cook john 2005 11 02 . startup wikisphere raises 5.25 million in 1st round . seattle post intelligencer . wiki providers score funding . red herring . 2007 02 22 . wetpaint.com 50 best websites 2007 . time magazine . 2007 07 09 . wetpaint goes social . press release . wetpaint . 2008 03 10 . retrieved 2008 05 11 . seattle layoff update targeted genetics wetpaint google and others cut staff . xconomy . 2009 08 26 . a b exclusive wetpaint cuts staff changes focus to publishing . john cook techflash . 2009 12 04 . wetpaint launches online tv fan destination with coverage of this fall s most anticipated tv programs wetpaint entertainment rapidly becomes a leading online entertainment news source due to wetpaint s proprietary social distribution system . viggle acquires wetpaint . press release . 2013 12 16 . external links edit official website function x company website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title wetpaint & oldid 739194207 categories entertainment websitesinfotainmentinternet companies of the united statescompanies established in 2005private equity portfolio companiessocial media companieshidden categories official website different in wikidata and wikipedia navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 13 september 2016 at 09 18 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view