We first heard of WhaleShark Media in March when MySpace VP Mobile John Faith jumped ship to join the secretive new startup. Now we have all the details.
The company is led by former BankRate COO Cotter Cuningham, and has raised over $30 million in funding from Austin Ventures and a number of undisclosed angels. Their strategy is to roll up the top deals and coupons sites on the Internet. It’s not the sexiest business in the world, but it sure is profitable, apparently.
They’ve acquired four sites already – deals2buy, coupon7, couponshare and my personal favorite, cheapstingybargains.com. The company isn’t saying the terms, other than both cash and stock is involved. more deals are closing soon, they say.
The go forward brand for the company will likely be deals.com, a domain name they’ve acquired from Demand Media. The new site is still in development and Demand Media content remains on the site for now.
These types of rollups are becoming a specialty of Austin Ventures. They founded the hugely successful HomeAway rollup. And more recently they backed former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe’s social gaming rollup MindJolt. Both Tom Ball and Phil Siegel. The company is already “oh yes” very profitable, they say, and have revenues of $10 million – $20 million.
RetailMeNot, Inc. (www.retailmenot.com/corp) is the world’s leading marketplace for online coupons and deals. The company’s websites enable consumers across the globe seeking to save money to find hundreds of thousands of offers from retailers. RetailMeNot, Inc. experienced more than 450 million consumer visits to its sites in 2012. The RetailMeNot, Inc., portfolio of coupon and deal websites includes http://www.RetailMeNot.com, the leading online coupon site in the United States; http://www.VoucherCodes.co.uk, the leading online coupon site in the United Kingdom; http://www.Deals.com...
Austin Ventures (“AV”) has worked with talented entrepreneurs to build valuable companies for over 25 years. With $3.9 billion under management, AV is the most active venture capital and growth equity firm in Texas and one of the most established in the nation. With an investment focus on business services and supply chain, financial services, new media, Internet, and information services, AV invests at all stages of company development, from $100,000 in “planned experiments” in early-stage ideas to $100+...
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