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Venture Capital News: StackSocial Stacks Up $800K

2012-07-25
VENICE, CA, E-commerce platform for publishers, today announces the public launch of its platform, and $800,000 in seed funding.
StackSocial (http://www.stacksocial.com), an e-commerce platform for publishers, today announces the public launch of its platform, and $800,000 in seed funding. The company is part of the first batch of startups launching from LA-based accelerator, Amplify, and touts a strong roster of investors including 500 Startups, Tim Draper, Paige Craig, Siemer Ventures, EchoVC Partners, Penny Black, Jim Pallotta, Rick Merrill, Josh Resnick, Mark Schwartz, and Jeff Lapin. StackSocial's digital commerce platform offers online publishers a dead-simple way to integrate relevant products into their sites.

StackSocial had been beta testing the platform with several publishers and today announced a new partnership with leading global technology publisher, Future US, Inc., who's sites include TechRadar, MacLife, Maximum PC, and GamesRadar amongst others. The partnership brings StackSocial's total network reach to 6 million unique visitors per month.

"Commerce on the web is absolutely exploding, yet the majority of web publishers lack the resources or expertise to take advantage. We solve that problem" said Josh Payne, Founder and CEO of StackSocial. "Our solution not only generates significant revenue, it also deepens the relationship between the publisher and their readers by creating additional value for readers, and providing more ways to interact with the publisher's brand."

Rather than sending a daily recommendation email to users, StackSocial differentiates itself by providing consumers with an organic commerce experience by embedding products and services from trusted brands directly on their favorite blogs and content sites. "Consumers have so many different apps and digital tools to choose from, we want to be the discovery platform that provides them what they need, faster" continued Payne.

StackSocial's service integrates directly into publishers' sites as an extension of their brand, providing a seamless experience that increases brand engagement with readers. The stores are white-labeled to match each publisher's look and feel and the inventory within the store is hand-selected to align with the publisher's audience. Publishers then drive awareness of products in the store through various methods including social media, widgets, navigation tabs, and editorial.

"We are looking forward to offering our fans the wide variety of deals sourced by StackSocial. StackSocial is in lock step with the types of products our users will appreciate and the partnership allows us the opportunity to provide an added-value service to our community" said Kelley Corten, Vice President of Consumer Media at Future US.

Since launching the beta just 9 months ago, the StackSocial platform has recorded over 50,000 transactions saving users over $7.5 million off retail in the process. The company attributes much of that success to significantly higher click thru rate's and conversions when compared to affiliate links that take users off-site. CultofMac.com, an early partner and lead Apple-enthusiast blog, increased their earnings from commerce by 18x in the first month after integrating the StackSocial service.

"The key is that we make offering commerce on site as turnkey as possible" says Co-Founder and CTO Stefan Wrobel. "We do all the heavy lifting from building the platform to sourcing inventory to taking customer support calls, and let publishers focus on what they do best, which is write great content and make their readers happy."

About StackSocial
StackSocial is an online marketplace focused on powering digital commerce across the web. Its digital commerce platform provides publishers a simple and effective way to generate additional revenues by organically weaving relevant commerce into the reader's daily experience. StackSocial's mission is to help people discover their inner geek by highlighting the best apps, gadgets, and digital resources available. Founded in 2011, StackSocial is accelerated by Amplify and headquartered in soulful Venice, California.
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