$5m funding for Jump On It
Online group buying company, Living Social, has invested five million dollars into Australian daily deal website Jump On It .
The announcement:
Leading Australian daily deal website Jump On It (www.JumpOnIt.com) today announced it has secured nearly $5 million in funding from the fastest growing online group buying company in the US: LivingSocial.
LivingSocial (www.LivingSocial.com) operates in the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK, and has more than 10 million subscribers in more than 100 cities worldwide. It also had the largest online audience in its segment in October 2010, according to Compete.com . While it has yet to launch in Australia, LivingSocial has been building its Australian presence here since January, acquiring a massive local email subscriber following looking for daily deals like those offered by Jump On it.
So, who is next? Groupon?
There’ll be a few more mergers and takeovers in this market, even the smaller players are profitable at the moment.
Whilst an easy way to move excess capacity/inventory, one has to imagine that retailers will eventually realise that discounting at this scale will not grow their client base but just see thmn overrun them with tyre kickers and tight arses.
These sites are going to kill local classifieds newspapers a bit like Seek and Realestate killed mainstream classifieds – they offer guarranteed customers at no cash outlay – why should an SME gamble on paying for hit-or-miss advertising anymore?
good quick money to be made for fast movers in this space.
so much hype around group buying – which means great exit multiples from ill-informed investors.
no evidence this type of business is sustainable but right now there’s no better place to be if you want a nice fat exit. bet your house News and FFX are looking at these relatively embryonic local startup groupon clones.