Small Businesses Are Finally Getting Online
We asked VCs this month about the most significant trends of 2009, and this was one of them -- that after years of waiting, small business owners finally saw it as worthwhile to get themselves and their companies onto the Web. "People used to think it was impossible to sell to small businesses, except through the Yellow Pages, who put armies of people on the street going door-to-door asking businesses to advertise," said Sharon Wienbar of Scale Venture Partners. Then she ticked off several Scale portfolio companies that do online marketing for small businesses -- HubSpot, MerchantCircle, Reply.com -- adding that each had a strong year. ReachLocal's proposed $100 million IPO today (S-1 filed here) is more evidence that she's right. The six-year-old company connects small businesses with potential customers by managing both their online and offline ad campaigns and has raised $68 million, according to Thomson Reuters -- including a Series D of $55 million a little over two years ago.
