LivingSocial’s biggest competitor, Groupon, raised $135 million and was given a $1.35 billion valuation recently. But LivingSocial plans to expand aggressively. LivingSocial will be launching in 4 new markets today (Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia) and is already established in 18 markets. The company has tripled their headcount to over 100 employees since the beginning of 2010. Tim O’Shaughnessy said that the rate of hiring will increase quickly. Aside from daily deals, LivingSocial is known for designing popular Facebook applications such as LivingSocial: Books, LivingSocial: Beers, LivingSocial: Movies, and LivingSocial: Albums.

Below is the full press release:

LivingSocial Raises Series C Round Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners;

Launches in Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia

$14 Million Round Comes on Heels of $25 Million Series B Announcement Last Month

Company Also Begins Offering Hyperlocal Deals in Seattle Area – Users Can Now Get Deals Even Closer to their Homes

Washington D.C., April 29, 2010 – LivingSocial, the social commerce leader behind LivingSocial Deals and top Facebook applications Visual Bookshelf and Pick Your Five, today announced that it has completed a $14 million Series C round of venture funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with U.S. Venture Partners, Grotech Ventures and Steve Case’s Revolution, LLC participating. Because of the rapid growth, and high user demand, LivingSocial will use the capital infusion to expand into additional markets – bringing Deals to dozens more cities throughout the U.S. in 2010. This additional funding comes on the heels of the company’s recent $25 million Series B round announced last month.

“We’ve known and admired the LivingSocial team for a long time, and I have bought many of their terrific local offers. They’ve done an excellent job of growing their user base through smart media buying and excellent knowledge of social channels and virality,” said Jeremy Liew, managing director of Lightspeed Venture Partners. “With this financing round, LivingSocial is very well positioned to bring their great offers to even more people.”

LivingSocial is also launching its Deals program in four new markets: Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia. This brings LivingSocial live in 18 cities across the country with major plans to expand to dozens of markets throughout the year.

“We’re constantly receiving requests from our users to expand and launch in their markets, and this recent funding round will allow us to do just that,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial. “We’re really excited to introduce LivingSocial to Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia to continue generating huge savings for our users and even bigger returns for our merchants.”

LivingSocial users throughout the country saved an average of more than $32 each in March, and have saved tens of millions of dollars since the launch of Deals in 2009. By signing up for LivingSocial’s free daily online service, people are saving an average of 50-70% at their favorite places, such as the hottest local restaurants, spas, sporting events, hotels, and other local attractions.

Because LivingSocial wants to give consumers more availability to the program, the company is launching hyperlocal deals for the Seattle area. Now consumers in areas like Tacoma and Bellevue will start getting deals targeted to their location, in addition to Seattle proper. Hyperlocal deals not only help more consumers explore new things in their city, but these deals also provide merchants with a greater opportunity to reach local audiences on the LivingSocial Deals platform.

LivingSocial is now live in 18 markets including: Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Twin Cities, Chicago, Raleigh Durham, Denver, San Diego, the San Fernando Valley, Portland, Orange County, Charlotte and Philadelphia. Dozens of additional cities are expected to roll out in the coming months. For more information or to sign up your city, go to http://livingsocial.com.

About LivingSocial

LivingSocial is an online community that connects more than 85 million people to all the things they care about. LivingSocial powers group buying through Deals, its new social commerce program which invites people and their friends to save 50 percent off or more each day at their favorite restaurants, spas, sporting events, hotels and other local attractions in major cities. As the creator of top Facebook applications “Visual Bookshelf” and its flagship “LivingSocial,” it’s the most comprehensive place on the Web for people to engage with others around topics like entertainment, food, fashion, technology and more. The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C. To sign up for Deals in your city, or to find out more information about LivingSocial, visit www.livingsocial.com. You can also follow LivingSocial on Twitter at www.twitter.com/livingsocial.

About Lightspeed Venture Partners

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital firm with over $2 billion of committed capital under management. Lightspeed’s investment professionals and advisors are located in Silicon Valley, China, India and Israel. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed more than 150 companies, many of which have become leaders in their respective markets, including Blue Nile, Brocade, Ciena, DoubleClick, eHealth, Flixster, Informatica, Kiva Software, Kosmix, LightLogic, Openwave, Playdom, Quantum Effect Devices, Riverbed, RockYou, ShoeDazzle, The Find, Virsa Systems, and Waveset.

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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]

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, iBiquity has raised $42 million in funding from investors such as Grotech Ventures, CBS Radio, Radio One Inc., Entercom Communications, FirstMark Capital, New Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures, and Clear Channel Radio.  This round of funding puts iBiquity at over $172 million in total funding over the last decade.

[via BizJournals]

LivingSocial has just raised $5 million in Series A funding from Grotech Ventures and Steve Case.  Tim O’Shaughnessy, co-founder of LivingSocial is a former AOL employee and also worked with Steve Case on RevolutionHealth.

LivingSocial has about 6.4 million beta users who have reviewed about 80 million items.  Personally I use ReadingSocial the most to tell my friends what books I’ve read, books I want to read, and books that I am currently reading.  I also use this as a way to tell myself that I need to hurry up and finish reading a book because it’s been on my profile for so long already.  ReadingSocial/Visual Bookshelf is LivingSocial’s most popular application with about 36,984 daily active users.

What will LivingSocial do with this round of funding?  My guess is that they’ll hire additional talent and create additional applications.

Related Links:
LivingSocial.com
Grotech Ventures