ChoozOn, the Bellevue company that helps consumers sort through the clutter of daily deals, has raised a $3.2 million first round of financing. Investors include Michael Orsak of Worldview Technology Partners and James Brown of AVG Ventures, both of whom have joined the board.
We wrote about the company — led by Usama Fayyad, Nick Weir and Hunter Madsen– back in April. But, at the time, the company declined to disclose its financial backers.
It plans to formally launch the service later this summer.
Even though ChoozOn has yet to formally launch, the business has continued to grow. It now employs more than 40 people. And ChoozOn has already signed on more than 1,000 brands, including Crocs, Boot Barn and Overstock.com.
ChoozOn allows its users to set up what it calls “personal deal networks,” which includes shoppers’ favorite stores, brands, product categories, loyalty programs, daily deal services and more.
“The world does not need yet another deals site,” ChoozOn co-founder and chairman Fayyad bluntly told GeekWire earlier this year. “But what is sorely needed is a way to benefit from this confusing cacophony of deals and special offers that is growing daily.”
Fayyad is well known in Seattle tech circles. After a career at Microsoft Research, he went on to create digiMine. (Now AudienceScience). He later served as chief data officer at Yahoo.
The funding comes amid a number of new developments in the daily deal arena, including the IPO filing of Groupon and Google’s acquisition of DealMap.
By: John Cook