Viral startup launching platform LaunchRock is announcing a get of $800K in seed funding today, from investors 500 Startups, Venture51, Quotidian Ventures, Social Leverage, Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter, David Tisch, Diego Berdakin, Paul Bricault, Dharmesh Shah, Ryan Holmes, Paige Craig, Scott Becker, Eric Cantor, Mike Edwards, David Famolari, Stephen Gill, James Levine, Daniel Wolfson, Philip Reicherz, Adrian Stone and Lance White (What a mouthful!).
In addition to announcing financing, LaunchRock is also, um, launching to the public, so that anyone who wants can create their own startup launch page as of today can. Coming out of private beta, the startup has introduced a design revamp which includes new launch-page themes, additional social options like Tumblr and LinkedIn and a more streamlined email invite flow.
LaunchRock founder Jameson Detweiler tells me that he plans on using the funding to bolster the marketing and analytics part of the LaunchRock launch packages, “The thing that our customers are telling us (and the thing we see them struggle with) is what to do with the [email] list after they’ve built it,” Detweiler says.
The service for the most part is still free and Detweiler is testing a variety of pricing models, leaning towards a performance-based approach, “We believe that we’re only at the beginning of data driven, social marketing. 99% of people who log into Google Analytics have no idea what they’re looking at or, more importantly, what to do with the data. We’re using the capital to build tools that aren’t just marketing, aren’t just analytics, but a combination of the two. Tools that just work. [So] don’t pay us for the tools, pay us for how well they work.”
Aside from themselves (enter your email into LaunchRock’s ubiquitous launch page to get started), LaunchRock has seen some well known startups and celebrities use it as part of their product launch strategy, including The Olsen Twins, Jessica Simpson, TaskRabbit, Birchbox and hilariously, TechCrunch Disrupt startups Shaker and Shakr.