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Social network for business owners in North America, MerchantCircle, has announced it has received $10 million in Series B funding from previous and new investors. These include previous investors Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Steamboat Ventures, and (among others) new partners IAC and Square 1 Bank.
MerchantCircle helps local merchants create and maintain a public online profile. The basic profile pages are free, but their business model includes a premium service, which costs between $29 and $99 per month. For this price, small business owners can track reviews about them and get bulk-advertising deals.
The company has been known to use some aggressive marketing tactics, which include cold calling small business owners and pre-creating their profile pages for them, but these are obviously working well. In its 17 months of existence, MerchantCircle has attracted more than 250,000 local merchants.