Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Jobvana nails new capital

Just three months after raising cash, Jobvana is back at the capital well. The Seattle startup -- which operates a social network used by small businesses to market products and services -- has attracted an undisclosed round of financing from Rally Capital that it will use to ramp up marketing efforts.

"The ability for us to grow faster and form a partnership with Rally seemed like a win-win situation for us," said Jobvana Chief Executive Nathan Casey, who founded the company last year after losing his job at Washington Mutual.

The deal follows an investment in March by Hawkeye Investments, which is led by telecommunications executive and Yahoo board member John Chapple. Rally Capital -- whose managing partner is Dennis Weibling -- is closely connected to Hawkeye since both Chapple and Weibling served on the board of Nextel Partners.

Jobvana recently unveiled a new Web site and national marketing campaign, a move to build upon the more than 30,000 businesses now using the service, Casey said.

Small business owners -- everyone from graphic designers to carpenters -- utilize Jobvana to tout services and make connections with other business people. It also gives them a basic Web presence -- simialar to Yelp or LinkedIn -- to market what they do.

"Small businesses thrive on personal connections, word of mouth referrals and their local community – with social networking, we bring this online and combine it with our social media expertise and easy-to-use marketing tools to give users maximum exposure to quality, targeted customers.

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