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MerchantCircle Gets $10M Series B, Credit For
Acquisitions
VentureWire
By Staff Reporters
November 7, 2007 MerchantCircle Inc., an online network for small businesses, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. New investors IAC/InterActiveCorp, Square 1 Bank and other unnamed angels joined return investors Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners, and Steamboat Ventures in the funding. The company has also obtained a line of debt to pursue potential acquisitions, said co-founder and chairman Ben Smith IV. MerchantCircle decided to go with IAC and Square 1 because of their deal-making skills and access to leverage-capital, Smith said. The company previously raised $4.1 million of Series A funding in 2005. The company, founded in October 2004, allows small companies to create Web sites, write blogs, send newsletters and publish coupons. It also allows these business owners to examine what has been written about the company on a variety of other Web sites. Social networking features allow the businesses to interact and find other businesses. The service is free, with more features including advertising on Google or Yahoo starting at $29 per month. MerchantCircle has a nationwide strategy that targets companies that are too small to build their own Web sites. These firms are often outside of high-technology centers on the east and west coasts. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company, with ten employees, has more than 250,000 companies signed up. With a small employee team, the company allows merchants to solve problems for each other on community forums.
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