LivingSocial is a company known for making Facebook applications where users can rate and review their favorite books, movies, etc. Now LivingSocial is trying something new: group coupons.
LivingSocial raised $25 million in a round led by U.S. Venture Partners, Grotech Ventures, and Steve Case’s Revolution LLC. Local businesses offer deals to only a group of people. LivingSocial plans to take this concept and spread it on Facebook. If a local deal is made, LivingSocial gets a cut from the local businesses.
Currently LivingSocial is offering group coupon deals to residents in Chicago, Denver, Raleigh-Durham, and San Diego. LivingSocial’s biggest competitor for this new model is Groupon.com, another well-funded group coupon company. The advantage that LivingSocial has is that they already have a solid footprint in Facebook applications. [VentureBeat]