Mobile shopping assistant ShopSavvy has secured $7 million in initial funding led by Eduardo Saverin, Facebook co-founder and private investor, who will join the company’s board of directors. ShopSavvy will use the financing to open a new office in San Francisco and expand the company’s engineering team.
“We had managed to avoid taking outside capital for three years after launching the company back in 2008,” ShopSavvy chief operating officer Alexander Muse wrote on the company’s blog. “Until now we survived on our original Google award money, revenue from early clients like Visa and funds from our co-founders.”
The company further expanded its board of directors to include James Bailey and John Boyd, chief operating officer and co-founder of ShopSavvy. The new directors join co-founders Alexander Muse and Rylan Barnes on the board.
“Much like the nascent days of social media, I believe the mobile shopping services market is in the very early stages of change,” Saverin said. “In my opinion, ShopSavvy has the right connections, the right partners and the right technology to be a game-changer.”
ShopSavvy also added existing investor Brad Martin, former chairman and chief operating officer of Saks Inc. and chairman of RBM Venture Company, to its board of advisors.
Since launching in 2008, ShopSavvy has attracted more than 10 million current unique users and reports over 40,000 partnerships with retailers, including Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Sears, Nordstrom and Barnes & Noble. The company’s corporate customers include Best Buy, Consumer Reports, HP, Kellogg, Microsoft, the New York Times, Nokia, Panasonic, Readers Digest, and Visa.
Related links:
ShopSavvy blog post – http://tinyurl.com/3kmlun8
