Whaleshark Media had already raised $120 million in capital to roll up the online coupon space. Now they’ve raised $10 million more in a round led by Google Ventures, with some participation from previous investors. They’ve also added Homeaway CEO Brian Sharples to the board of directors.
Sharples will be useful. He grew HomeAway into a monster. He raised half a billion dollars from Austin Ventures (which also backs Whaleshark) and others and took HomeAway public. Like HomeAway, Whaleshark is growing via lots of acquisitions. It’s the same model applied to a different market.
Whaleshark is broadly competitive with daily deal sites like Groupon, or at least has a similar business model. Google Venture’s investment isn’t surprising given how focused Google has been on this space over the last year.
The company is doing very well. Revenue will top $50 million this year, and more than 100,000 businesses offer coupons on Whalehark’s various sites. A thousand more are added weekly, says CEO Cotter Cunningham. !50 million people have visited their sites in the last year.
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