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Groupon Sale Could Inspire More ClonesWhen Todd Rideman first heard about Groupon, he figured he could do it, too. After all, what's so hard about putting up a Website, offering a few deals each day from local merchants -- like $20 worth of cupcakes for $10 -- and then watching the cash roll in? So Rideman poured $100,000 of his hard-earned money into his own daily deal site and, at the beginning of the year, launched WowWhatSavings, targeting the Boston area. He quickly learned, however, that building a profitable Groupon clone isn't as easy it looks. "I was able to get the local merchants, but getting people to come to the site was costing a fortune," said Rideman. After six months, he had just a few thousand people on his distribution list. He has since morphed his business into a deal site for restaurants only, and has seen sales perk up. WowWhatSavings, based in Waltham, Mass., is one of more than 130 Websites that offer daily deals like Groupon, according to Yipit, which aggregates the deals. Now, with the New York Times reporting that Google is negotiating to buy Groupon for up to $6 billion, the space is likely to grow even more crowded.
Success of Groupon Inspires ImitatorsDespite Groupon’s dominant market share and continued growth, clones of the group buying site continue to spring up and attract venture capital
- Consumer VC Backs Tongue Cleaner Famous for its Viral Videos
2X Consumer, which focuses on food and beverages, personal care products, home care and pet care, invested an undisclosed amount in Orabrush
- Wolverines Claw Out New Seed Fund
Co-founders of Resonant Ventures previously helped run the University of Michigan’s $5.5M student-led venture fund
- Week in deals, Sept. 27, 2010
Summary of tech companies and other startups in North America that raised venture financing in the past week
- peHUB Wire: Friday, September 17, 2010
Friday Feedback
- peHUB Wire: Friday, September 17, 2010
Friday Feedback
- Bloomspot Closes a Series A Financing Round and Secures $9 Million
Bloomspot closed a Series A round of funding and secured $9 million. The round was led by Menlo Ventures. True Ventures and Harrison Metal participated in the financing. Other investors that took part in an initial seed round, which closed March 2009, include Silicon Valley executives Jeff Weiner, Erik Blachford and Brad Garlinghouse. Bloomspot is a flash sale service focused on luxury hotels, restaurants and spas.
- peHUB Second Opinion 9.7
HP fires Mark Hurd. Mark Hurd joins Oracle as co-president. HP sues Mark Hurd. The Journal analyzes the drama http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/07/analysis-the-h-p-suit-against-mark-hurd/?mod=e2tw New San Francisco-based startup Ubercab http://www.ubercab.com gets a nice shout-out from Jon Callaghan http://www.trueventures.com/blog/2010/09/03/physical-web-how-apps-can-move-atoms-bend-time/ of True Ventures. He's not an investor (yet), but Stumbleupon cofounder Garrett Camp is; so is angel Travis Kalanick. Speaking of wheels when you need them, the Economist takes a look at the big business of renting cars by the hour http://www.economist.com/node/16945232?story_id=16945232 Vanity Fair profiles self-described perennial outsider Sean Parker http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/10/sean-parker-201010?currentPage=all of Facebook, Napster, and Founders Fund fame. Is Wall Street research "a valuable social good?" http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/fly-on-the-wall-litigation/ Google's new interactive logo has people feeling stoned confused. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/googles_mysterious_new_interac.html