When Sequoia Capital does a venture deal, people listen. The firm has backed such companies as Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and YouTube.

Well, Sequoia is making another play in the video space; that is, it has arranged a $4 million investment in TokBox.

With TokBox, you can make video calls - for free. Also, the platform is completely web-based. You don't even have to register for the service. There is also a cool feature that allows you to embed TokBox on a blog or social network.

I had a chance to interview Chase Norlin on the matter (he is the CEO and founder of Pixsy, which is a video search engine). According to him:

"Tokbox is in a very interesting space that has yet to produce a clear winner. The pioneer and current leader of the space is Paltalk, the main difference being that they're a downloadable app. The recent funding of TokBok brings back a lot of memories of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s Skype in the early days: Find a breakthrough technology, get mass distribution, then figure out how to monetize it later. Hopefully these guys will figure out that last part quicker than Skype has."

If you want to check out other venture fundings, click here.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Sequoia Capital backs Tokbox: YouTube redux? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.