Investment Pours into Social Commerce: $90.2m in last 60 Days

Investment is pouring into social commerce, the fusion of social media with e-commerce: Over $90m in the last sixty days…

• Social Shopping site ThisNext has raised a further $1.2m funding (total funding just under $9m) (Jan 29, 2010)
• Social Shopping site (Group Buy), BuyWithMe has raised $5.5 million funding (Jan 21, 2010)
• Social Shopping site (Group Buy), Groupon has raised $30 million funding (Dec 2, 2010)
• Social Shopping site Blippy, has raised $1.6 million funding (Jan 15, 2010)
• Social Shopping software (social media stores) provider Alvenda has raised $5 million funding (Jan 17, 2010)
• Ratings & Reviews software provider PowerReviews has raised $4.9m funding (PowerReviews also owns review site Buzzillions) (Dec 18, 2009)
• Private Sale Site Beyond The Rack (private sale sites are built on online member-get-member referral schemes) has raised a further $2 million funding (from Oleg Tscheltzoff and Oliver Jung, and Montreal Start Up) (total finding = $4.5m) (Jan 28, 2010)
• Private Sale Site One Kings Lane has received undisclosed funding (Jan 8, 2010)
• Private Sale Site KupiVIP has received $20m funding (Jan 18, 2010)
• Private Sale Site Ideeli has raised $20m funding (in addition to Kodiak Venture Partners original funding of $3.8m) (Dec 8, 2009) (Private Sale competitor Gilt raised $40m funding back in July 2009)

From the list, it’s clear that social shopping sites and software (enabling people to share the act of shopping) and private sale sites (driven by shopper-get-shopper referral programs) are the hot areas in social commerce right now.  With Amazon looking to buy private sale site Vente-Privee for $3bn, look for more innovation and investment in private sale sites in 2010.