Start-up Townsquared, an online community designed to help small businesses connect and share resources with each other, has secured an USD11.05 million round of Series B funding.
This brings the total amount of funding the company has received to USD16.4 million. The latest funding round is led by top-tier international venture capital firm Sierra Ventures and Intuit, the leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small businesses. Additional investors include Jocelyn Goldfein, former Engineering Director at Facebook and former VP of Engineering at VMware, and Pravin Madhani, Angel Investor.
Townsquared has been able to establish a strong national presence since the launch of the community with a 115 per cent increase in membership over the last year. The company has earmarked a portion of this funding round to expand into 5-10 additional cities across the country. The community will officially launch in Portland in September with additional cities such as Boston, Chicago, Austin, DC, Los Angeles, Miami and more on the company's radar. Townsquared will continue to focus on hyper-locality, devoting resources to expanding into additional neighbourhoods in each city with an emphasis on community involvement. The company will continue to partner with local police departments, merchants' associations, city small business offices, and chambers of commerce to support cross-information sharing and community safety. The Townsquared team is expected to grow by 60 per cent over the next year with hiring planned in engineering, product and city management.
"At Sierra Ventures we are always looking for large markets where software can create disruptions and entrepreneurs who execute to such opportunities," says Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. "The multibillion-dollar small business market has tremendous opportunity yet is lacking a common communication and resource platform. We decided to invest in Townsquared because of the company's unique capabilities to connect and help small businesses across the world."
"Our support for Townsquared is rooted in our common goal of helping small businesses succeed in their local community," said Andrew Westergren, Intuit's Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer. "At Intuit we help 4.5 million small businesses and believe the power of the network effect helps them win together. Townsquared is continuing to show success in providing small businesses with the myriad of resources they need to thrive and better their local communities."
Townsquared also announced a new VP of Product, Andy Bryson. Bryson is formerly the Director of Product Management and Growth at SurveyMonkey, where he built SurveyMonkey's Growth team, leading viral growth initiatives that resulted in the doubling of users to over 30 million. Bryson was also responsible for international SEO, as well as infrastructure and growth initiatives that resulted in over 40 per cent international business growth. At Townsquared Bryson will lead the product vision and definition of Townsquared's online and mobile community. He will oversee a team of product managers, designers and data scientists that aims to help small business owners across the country connect, collaborate and share resources.
"The focus of Townsquared has always been on hyper-locality and achieving density within a market," says Rohit Prakash, Co-Founder and CEO at Townsquared. "This is why we've strategically selected our launch markets and focused on expansion within them rather than launching quickly into new cities. In some of our neighbouurhoods, Townsquared has as much as 70 per cent of the local merchant population participating, as well as local government, police departments and business organisations. Our Series B funding round and the addition of these respected investors will help us continue this success as we expand nation-wide and help the small businesses that play an important role in our communities and the nation's economy."
