Milo, the free Web site that enables shoppers to search online and buy local, today announced that the company has raised $4 million in Series A financing.
True Ventures led the round, joined by a Who’s Who of Silicon Valley, including key leadership from Mint.com, PayPal, Yelp, and YouTube. By searching the inventory systems of local stores in real time to find the products shoppers want, Milo.com combines the advantages of an Amazon-like experience with the ability to touch, feel and get products now at a local retailer.
Since launching its public beta in December 2008, Milo.com has:
* Grown from 2,000 users to an expected 1,000,000 a month, a 70 percent month-over-month increase
* Added real-time inventory for 1.5 million products, growing by an average of 185,000 items per month
* Indexed more than 42,000 stores spanning 30,000 communities across the country
“The round was very oversubscribed, and we’re extremely excited to have picked True Ventures and some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent angel investors to partner with Milo.com,” said Jack Abraham, Milo founder and CEO. “We’ve been able to attract some of the great forward-thinking entrepreneurial minds, with category-specific success, to help us build a bridge between online and offline commerce.”
The new funding will accelerate Milo.com’s consumer growth and partnership development – right in time for the holiday season. Milo.com will continue to expand its real-time database daily, adding more products and stores to find the best price and availability for the products shoppers want – right when they want them.
Abraham and co-founder/CTO John Evans helped build comScore’s core technology, which now supports the second largest database in the U.S.; third co-founder/Lead Engineer Ted Dziuba brings data expertise from Google and subsequent startups.
Eighty-seven percent of U.S. consumers research online and buy offline.* Milo.com is poised to own this channel by offering shoppers the best of both worlds. Milo.com provides all the product details and user reviews shoppers have come to expect with Amazon, and then searches local store shelves to let users know where a product is currently available, and at what price. Shoppers can get products right away, save time and money by avoiding shipping and keep more shopping dollars in their local economy.
True Ventures Co-Founder Jon Callaghan led the round and joined Milo.com’s Board of Directors. Callaghan is a passionate early stage investor with an impressive track record, consistent early stage success and 17 years of venture investing experience, which began at Summit Partners and CMGi’s @Ventures, the world’s first Internet-only venture firm. Callaghan has been an entrepreneur himself and founded three companies of his own, one of which IPO’d on NASDAQ and reached a market value of over $9B. This combination of entrepreneurial experience, venture investing track record and commitment to early stage companies led to the formation of True Ventures in 2005.
“Research online, buy offline is projected to represent 40 percent of total retail sales by 2011 – forecasted at $1 trillion – versus e-commerce, which is only 5 percent. Milo.com is in a prime position to lead this cross-channel shopping trend,” said Callaghan. “Jack and his team have mastered what much bigger companies haven’t been able to, and I’m excited to be a part of what I foresee will be explosive growth.”
“The value we can provide shoppers during the holiday season – and all year long – is unmatched. It’s simple: people hate paying for shipping and waiting for a product to arrive, but they love researching products online,” continued Abraham. “We give them the best of both worlds, and this added support will accelerate our ability to serve more shoppers as we head into the busiest shopping season of the year.”
To take advantage of Milo.com this holiday shopping season, please visit www.milo.com.
Source: Milo.com
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