Leading Facebook eCommerce Platform Payvment Closes $6 Million Round of Series B Funding

Leading Silicon Valley Venture Capital Firms Sierra Ventures and BlueRun Ventures Participate

SAN FRANCISCO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Payvment, the leading eCommerce platform on Facebook, today announced it has closed a $6 million round of Series B funding led by Sierra Ventures. BlueRun Ventures, which led Payvment’s initial round of funding one year ago, also participated in the round. Vispi Daver, a partner at Sierra Ventures, has been elected to Payvment’s board of directors.

“This round of funding further solidifies Payvment’s position as the leading social commerce platform on Facebook.”

Following Payvment’s initial year of explosive, unparalleled growth, the new funding will position the company for its next phase of development. In its first year, Payvment has signed up more than 40,000 global retailers to use its award-winning social commerce platform, recognized by eCommerce Awards for Excellence 2010 with the eCommerce Site Innovation Award. Payvment currently offers more than 750,000 searchable products and is adding hundreds of retail storefronts and thousands of products to Facebook per day.

Christian Taylor, founder and chief executive officer of Payvment, said, “This round of funding further solidifies Payvment’s position as the leading social commerce platform on Facebook.”

Over the next few months, Payvment will be hiring top talent in engineering, online community support, marketing, product integration, retail coordination and other areas. To accommodate the increase in headcount, the company will be cutting the ribbon on a new headquarters in Palo Alto, CA in Q1 of next year.

Vispi Daver, partner, Sierra Ventures, said, “Social commerce is the next big growth area and retailers are asking, ‘How can we monetize our social media presence?’ Payvment has already answered that question and has defined the social commerce space. We are excited to invest in what promises to be one of the most important developments of the social web.”

Jonathan Ebinger, General Partner at BlueRun Ventures added, “We couldn’t be more pleased with Payvment and its skyrocketing success since our initial investment. Now that the technology has evolved to enable large retailers to import their inventories, the sky’s the limit.”

Payvment provides, free of charge, the only turnkey solution for retailers to create their own storefronts where Facebook’s 500 million users can discover products and shop without ever leaving Facebook. Payvment also helps retailers incentivize Facebook users to become “Fans” of their brands by offering discounts. Data show that Facebook Fans are more valuable to retailers than non-Fans. According to research by Syncapse, Facebook Fans are 41 percent more likely to recommend a consumer product and 28 percent more likely to continue using it.

Taylor added, “As we move toward a world where every industry is becoming social, major retailers are starting to see the value of social commerce. If they don’t, they risk becoming irrelevant.”

About Payvment

Payvment, Inc. (www.payvment.com) is an award-winning, venture-backed startup that has created the leading eCommerce platform on Facebook. Recognized by eCommerce Awards for Excellence 2010 with the eCommerce Site Innovation Award, Payvment provides, free of charge, the only application that enables retailers to create their own storefronts where Facebook’s 500 million users can discover products and shop without ever leaving the social network. As retailers look to social media for new ways to build their brands, Payvment helps monetize a brand’s Facebook presence and turn “Fans” into more valuable customers. Launched in late 2009, San Francisco-based Payvment has signed up more than 40,000 retailers offering more than 750,000 searchable products across Facebook. Payvment is currently adding hundreds of retail storefronts and thousands of products per day.

About Sierra Ventures

Sierra Ventures (www.sierraventures.com) is a private venture capital firm focused on investments across all areas of Information Technology. The firm works with entrepreneurs and management teams in the US, China and India to originate and build new companies into large, profitable businesses. Since 1982, Sierra has raised nine venture funds with over $1.5 billion in committed capital and some of the firm's investments include MakeMyTrip (NASDAQ: MMYT), Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU), Sourcefire (NASDAQ: FIRE), AuthenTec Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTH), Greenplum (acquired by EMC), Simplify Media (acquired by Google), Micromuse (acquired by IBM), FatBrain (acquired by Barnes & Noble) and many more.

About Blue Run Ventures

BlueRun Ventures (www.brv.com) is a leading early stage venture capital firm focused on Internet, Mobile and Media opportunities. BlueRun works closely with entrepreneurs to build market-changing companies such as PayPal (EBAY), WiderThan (REAL), Slide (GOOG) and Enpocket (NOK). With offices in Menlo Park, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, and Helsinki, BlueRun brings distributed insight to each market and opportunity to help young companies navigate dynamic markets.