LivingSocial Raises $110 Million, Nearly Tops $1 Billion In Funding


LivingSocial Funding Round

Daily deals platform LivingSocial has announced $110 million from a new round of funding. Investors now include Steve Case, Grotech Ventures, Revolution, US Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, JP Morgan, T. Rowe Price, and Amazon.

That money raised is on top of more than $800 million LivingSocial has collected from investors since launching in 2007.

News of the new funding round was announced by CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy in a memo to the company’s employees. According to O’Shaughnessy the new round of funding from investors has “reinforced their support for the company through a new round of financing.”

The company’s CEO called the new $110 million round of funding a “tremendous vote of confidence in our business from the people who know us best.”

The memo and funding round arrive just three months after LivingSocial fired 400 employees, nearly 10 percent of its overall workforce. Employee roles were terminated as the company attempted to restructure its sales, customer, and merchant services.

Despite its layoffs, LivingSocial doubled revenue in 2012 from $250 million to $536 million. While revenue increased LivingSocial claimed a net loss of $650 million in 2012, up from a net loss of $499 million in 2011.

Not all investors have shared a full vote of confidence in the platforms longevity. Amazon originally controlled a $175 million, 29 percent stake in the company, an investment that has since declined to $52 million.

Here is the full LivingSocial memo that was sent to employees on Wednesday morning:

LivingSocialites –

We’ve got some great news to announce today, as many of our current investors have reinforced their support for the company through a new round of financing that will give us an additional $110 million to build our reserves, solidify our long-term plans, and execute against our vision for the future.

This investment is a tremendous vote of confidence in our business from the people who know us best, our current board members and investors. They have reviewed our plans for 2013, and they are enthusiastic enough to want to commit additional financial resources through this round. This round also follows a competitive process in which we were fortunate enough to have multiple options for funding.

As you know from our all-hands last month, we have an aggressive roadmap for profitability and expansion this year, and those plans include increased investment in areas like marketing, technologies, and mobile. This new investment round will allow us to dedicate the resources we need, while also building a significant cash reserve against unanticipated events or bumps in the road.

This new investment does not change our plans to reach profitability, and we believe that a cash-flow positive and growing company will give us even deeper resources to take advantage of new opportunities, extend our promising lines of business, and expand a robust funnel of new customers. We will be sharing regular updates on our results and progress against goals as we move forward.

We’ve had a solid start to the year, and I am excited about the opportunity to solidify our path to success over the next couple months. Thank you again for your hard work and dedication.

– Tim

Do you think LivingSocial will stand the test of time?


Kossi

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