Is there no end to the group buying craze? It seems not and today news comes that Huddlebuy, the ‘Groupon for small businesses’, has raised £350,000 in Angel funding. Those that participated in the round include Alex Chesterman, co-founder of LoveFilm and Zoopla, and well-known Angel Sherry Coutu.
UK-based Huddlebuy is founded by Per Larsen (ex-Apple), Chieu Cao (ex-Microsoft) and Saurav Chopra (ex-Deloite/Yahoo!) and like a typical group buying site, offers discounts – this time aimed at small businesses – through the so-called power of group buying, which in reality is achieved through a sprinkling of economies of scale supported by a heavy dose of social media marketing as offers are designed to go viral.
As such, each deal only goes through once it reaches a tipping point, which in the case of Huddlebuy varies by product and supplier but averages around as little as 3-5 buyers per-deal, while the site runs between 10 and 15 deals at a time. Recent offers include those from KashFlow for its online accounting software and Epson for a 4-in-1 printer.
Interestingly – and I’ve been waiting for somebody to do this – Huddlebuy also offers a ‘request a deal’ option whereby businesses can register their interest in a deal that has expired or a new one they would like to see on the site. Huddlebuy then sends out its sales team to try to make it happen.