RISMEDIA, Jan 23, 2008–ActiveRain, Bellevue, Washington-based social networking site has announced that HouseValues, a Kirkland, Washington-based lead generation and marketing firm has invested $2.75 million in a Series A minority investment in the company.
The deal is structured similar to a venture capital investment with the two companies remaining separate with different business models, company executives said. “We have no plans to be a lead generation company,” said ActiveRain CEO Jonathan Washburn on the company’s blog yesterday.
They do plan, however to use the funds to hire developers, upgrade their technology infrastructure, and work on becoming profitable, said Matt Heaton, the company’s executive vice president. The main use for the funds he says will go into product development under two big initiatives–getting their outside blogging platform launched and rebuilding their Localism.com portal for consumers.
According to ActiveRain, their social networking site has 66,000 members, making it the second largest social networking site in the industry next to RealTown which has 78,000 members.
For more information, visit www.activerain.com.
