Shopit lands $2.5 million in Series B funding
The social shopping site has raised $2.5 million in funding, which it plans to use to develop its own advertising network.
Shopit, a social shopping service that works with popular social networks and e-commerce sites, announced today that it raised $2.5 million in Series B funding from Emerson Ventures and Propulsion Ventures. The company wants to raise a total of $7 million before it closes the round.
Shopit harnesses the popularity of social networks to entice sellers to use its service. After creating a store on Shopit's site, sellers can direct potential customers to their Shopit profile to buy their goods or post their store's widget anywhere on the Web. More importantly, Shopit stores can be integrated into social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Hi5, along with sites like Craigslist and Amazon. Once the customer buys a product, Shopit's e-commerce platform provides identity management features and shipping solutions to streamline the post-purchase process.
"In turbulent economic times, we are very pleased to have this backing from our investors, as it will enable us to continue our leadership in this exciting space," said Matt Hill, CEO of Shopit. "This new funding will carry the company well into 2010, despite our plans to be profitable in mid-2009."
Thanks to the funding, which Shopit will use to develop its own advertising network, the company will start to hire more employees in the areas of advertising, sales, and technology.
