LiveDeal.com, an online classifieds site founded by a former eBay executive, has secured $4.85 million in Series B funding. Torstar Coporation, a major Canadian media company, led the round and took a minority stake in LiveDeal. Also investing in the round was venture capital firm Draper Richards and individual investors from eBay, HP and the real estate industry.
LiveDeal also announced the formation of a joint venture with Torstar to deliver a free online classifieds site in Canada later this year, the first step of LiveDeal's international expansion strategy. LiveDeal Canada will be a free local online classifieds site. The joint venture marries LiveDeal's Web classifieds technology with the extensive local reach of Torstar's Canadian media brands including the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper; CityMedia Group's family of daily and community newspapers in Southwestern Ontario; and Metroland's over 90 community newspapers in Southern Ontario.
"Millions of people from all walks of life are embracing the benefits of LiveDeal's free local online classifieds," said Rajesh Navar, LiveDeal's founder and CEO. "This investment by Torstar and one of Silicon Valley's most successful VC firms, is further validation of the strength of our technology platform and our value proposition to make local buying and selling easy and affordable."
The new funding will be used to further accelerate LiveDeal's market acceptance and expand LiveDeal's free local online classifieds platform both domestically and internationally.
LiveDeal.com was founded in 2003 by Navar, an original member of the engineering and management teams at eBay and other successful Internet companies. More than one million unique users visit LiveDeal.com each month to buy and sell items across a variety of categories, and LiveDeal has over $3 billion worth of goods listed for sale.
http://www.livedeal.com
