Viewpoints Network LLC has closed a $5 million round of funding for a new product rating and review site.
The investor group for the Series A round includes the Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund, a new public/private venture capital fund. The $200,000 investment from the fund adds to $4.8 million that was raised in September.
In addition to the Illinois Innovation investment, other Series A backers include Joe Mansueto, founder and chief executive of Morningstar Inc.; Michael Alter, president of The Alter Group; Matt McCall, co-founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson affiliate Portage Venture Partners; Lon Chow, general partner with Apex Venture Partners; and J.B. Pritzker, founder and partner of New World Ventures and CEO of the Pritzker Group.
"I talked to several venture capital firms and several offered to invest, but ultimately I went with individuals I've known for a long time," said Matt Moog, founder and CEO of Viewpoints. "That's really the way I could get the terms I felt justifiable and I was trying to get up and running quickly."
The recent round of funding will be used to add new features to the site, Moog said.
The founding team at Viewpoints has prior experience as senior executives at Orbitz LLC and CoolSavings Inc., now called Q Interactive Inc., two successful Chicago area Internet companies.
Founded in August 2006, Viewpoints is a rating and review Web site that draws upon personal experiences of its user community to help consumers make smarter purchase decisions. The site, launched in May, enables people to post reviews across a range of categories, from movies to restaurants, education to health care, travel and hundreds of other categories.
Moog said that in a crowded field of review sites, Viewpoints will stand apart because of its platform, which adds credibility to reviewers by providing descriptors or "tags" on a profile after each review to help distinguish his or her particular tastes.
The site can distinguish, for example, if a hotel reviewer is a five-star traveler or a budget conscious traveler, which helps the user know how relevant the review is to their needs.
"It's not just finding the best digital camera, but there's the best of whatever it is for this kind of person," Moog said. "We can use those tags to determine if a camera is best for a professional."
Moog said the company plans to have a million unique visitors each month by the end of the year. Revenue will be driven by advertising. |
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