ORLANDO, FL—PayPerPost, which pays bloggers and other content providers to post product-related items, has completed a $7 million second round investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Additional participants in the round include insiders Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures as well as new investor DFJ Gotham. With this investment, DFJ Managing Director Josh Stein also joins PayPerPost’s Board of Directors.
The financing brings the total amount of capital raised by PayPerPost to over $10 million.
“PayPerPost created this exciting new advertising space and has established itself as the industry leader,” said Ted Murphy, chief executive officer of PayPerPost.
“Although we’ve only used a portion of our first round capital, this added support from investors unlocks significant growth potential. We intend to use this capital to build the infrastructure, visibility and professional expertise necessary to reach and retain a greater network of advertisers and content creators than ever before.”
Model criticized
Since its founding in June of 2006, PayPerPost has signed more than 6,500 advertisers to its service, which has enabled consumer content creators to be compensated for their efforts discussing specific companies, products or services via blogs, videos or other media.
The content creators are required to disclose relationships with advertisers on their blog, providing transparency for the end reader.
Nevertheless, the PayPerPost model has drawn media criticism of its model. Critics say it distorts the traditional line between journalism and advertising. Bloggers in particular have worried that overtime it could erode trust in the objectivity of their reports.
Over 125,000 Internet postings, most in the form of blogs, have already earned money for their creators through PayPerPost’s marketplace.
PayPerPost recently released PayPerPost Direct, a disruptive new service that allows advertisers to contract and negotiate directly with individual bloggers they identify through a safe, managed system.
“PayPerPost has laid a strong foundation for the future,” noted Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
“It continues to attract a critical mass of participants from both the advertising and blogging communities. Analogous to Overture’s sponsored search model, we believe PayPerPost’s business model holds disruptive potential and will enable the company to thrive in the evolving paid-content arena.”
To mark the $7 million dollar funding, PayPerPost has launched a new website detailing the company’s service offering at http://www.payperpost.com. About PayPerPost:
© 2007, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
