Empire Avenue is an Edmonaton, CA-based social stock market where users are the “company” and their product and value are determined by what they do online and the networks they create. Led by CEO Duleepa Wijayawardhana, the site enables users to build personal brands, make value-based connections and quantify the value of their networks across social services. It offers a range of metrics to show users the value of their networks on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr. The platform has also added scoring for Foursquare and Instagram. The market has users in more than 190 countries. The company intends to use the $1.2M in funding to grow its team and further expand its platform. Empire Avenue operates an online market where users buy and sell virtual shares of each other; a person’s influence score is their share price, calculated from on-site trading activity and offsite contributions to blogs, websites, and social networks. The platform launched to the public earlier this year and since February has attracted over 15,000 registered users and businesses, including Sears, OREO, WestJet, and Motorola. Users have completed over 750,000 virtual share trades in the past three months with a total value exceeding half a billion Eaves, the site’s virtual currency. The startup raised $200,000 in seed funding from a group of angel investors, including Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures. The new funding will be used for marketing and product development, including the impending launch of rewards and advertising programs. Empire Avenue faces competition from services like Klout.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Aug 2011