SavingStar, the national paperless grocery coupon service, announced today that Michael Lazerow, the founder and CEO of Buddy Media, has joined the company’s board of directors. Launched in April 2011, SavingStar provides digital coupons to more than 24,000 stores and over 100 supermarket and drugstore chains across the U.S.
SavingStar’s eCoupons are available on the web and through the company’s iPhone and Android apps, and are linked to users’ registered loyalty cards. Rather than applying coupons at the register when checking out, the coupon’s savings are automatically deposited into users’ SavingStar accounts, where they can choose from several different payout options: Payout from a deposit into a bank account or PayPal account, an Amazon gift card, or a donation to charity. Nearly 500,000 users have signed up for SavingStar in the two months since the service went live.
In 2007, Lazerow co-founded Buddy Media, a management system that allows global advertisers and brands to manage their Facebook pages. With scalable architecture and nifty administrative tools, Buddy Media’s solution gives brands an all-in-one social media management system that enables them to launch, maintain and measure their Facebook presence in any country and in any language. As Leena wrote back in October, one of Buddy Media’s biggest selling points i that “users don’t need to have any prior FBML knowledge to create pages on Facebook and can create sleek and interactive pages” with ease.
Prior to Buddy Media, Lazerow founded Golf.com, which was sold to Time Warner in 2006. Before Golf.com, Lazerow founded University Wire, a network of more than 700 student-run newspapers, which he sold to Student Advantage, helping it grow into a service that is now powered by student journalists at more than 800 colleges and universities across the U.S.
Last week, The Buddy Media CEO also joined the board of directors of Savored, formerly known as Village Vines, which offers high-end dining discounts at top-rated Zagat restaurants. The startup raised $3 million back in January.
Lazerow joins SavingStar’s current outside board members, which include Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital Partners, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, and David Coppins of Upromise. The company announced a $7 Million Series B funding in April, bringing total investment to $10.7 million.