Shopkick, a startup that’s focused on bridging the real world shopping experience with mobile, just closed a rather large $15 million round of funding from Greylock Partners. Partner Reid Hoffman, who is also an individual investor in the company, is already on the board of directors.
The company had previously raised $5 million from Hoffman and Kleiner Perkins Kaufield & Byers. Kleiner participated in this round of financing as well.
We first covered Shopkick a year ago when it was deep in stealth. In December 2009 they launched a mobile application that let people check in to certain retailers for points that could be used for donations to worthy causes.
But the “real” product of the company is yet to launch, says CEO Cyriac Roeding. It’s been promised sometime this summer.
I spoke to Hoffman about the company earlier today. He’s been a big believer in the team since it was in its earliest idea stage. This large financing round will let the company move through launch to, hopefully, its inflection point of growth without needed to raise more money.
This is a crowded space, but no one has won it yet. And now Shopkick has $15 million more to go for the win.
shopkick was founded in June 2009 by Cyriac Roeding, Jeff Sellinger, Aaron Emigh, and is funded by Kleiner Perkins’ iFund, Greylock Partners and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and investor in Facebook and Zynga, and Ron Conway. shopkick bridges the worlds of mobile and physical retail. In August 2010, shopkick launched the first mobile application that hands consumers rewards and exclusive deals at shopkick’s national retail partners simply for walking into thousands of stores and malls. shopkick created...
Greylock partners with entrepreneurs to help them build market-leading businesses. Over the past 45 years the firm has worked with hundreds of companies, 150 of which have gone on to IPOs and 100 of which have gone on to profitable M&A events. Such companies include Ascend Communications, CheckFree, CipherTrust, Constant Contact, Continental Cable, Decru, Data Domain, DoubleClick, Farecast, Internet Security Systems, Ikanos, Legato, Media Metrix, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Openwave, Open Market, OutlookSoft, Polyserve, Red Hat, RightNow Technologies, Success Factors, Tellabs,...
Reid Hoffman is a Partner at Greylock, and Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at LinkedIn. Reid joined Greylock Partners in 2009. His areas of focus include consumer Internet, enterprise 2.0, mobile, social gaming, online marketplaces, payments, and social networks. Reid likes to work with products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants and businesses that have network effects. An accomplished entrepreneur, executive and angel investor, Hoffman has played an integral part in building many of today’s leading consumer technology...
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