Yelp operates a consumer-facing review site that hosts user-written reviews; the article reports the site had more than 26 million unique visitors in December 2009 and about 9 million reviews. The company is raising capital from Elevation Partners, beginning with a $25 million Series E tranche. Elevation may invest as much as $100 million in total over time. The financing includes both a primary investment component and a secondary offering to provide liquidity for long-time employees (described as a DST-style deal). Elevation co-founder Marc Bodnick will join Yelp’s board; Bono was originally expected to be the board representative. The round follows Yelp walking away from an almost-signed $550 million buyout by Google. Yelp operates a popular local review site that hosts user-submitted reviews and ratings of businesses. The company reports 8.3 million unique visitors in the past 30 days and over 2.3 million reviews (having reached 1 million reviews in May 2007). Yelp says it will use the new funding to expand geographically, grow its sales team, and open an office in New York City; the company is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2004. Yelp faces competition from InsiderPages (acquired by Citysearch) and YellowBot, with potential future pressure from Google Local and Yahoo Local. Revenues are rumored to be under $10 million per year. The site is positioned as a growing local-review network with accelerating audience and review volume. Yelp operates a local review site that aggregates user-submitted reviews of businesses and services. The company reported 1.5 million unique visitors last month, about double the traffic it saw in January. Yelp added a mobile version of its service this summer and was named one of Time's 50 coolest sites. It faces competition from startups like Judy’s Book as well as larger local-search players that include reviews. The article does not disclose revenue or other financial metrics.

Total raised

$50M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series E

Latest activity

Jan 2010