An Idealab company is graduating from the incubator. Insider Pages, a “local search” engine based in Idealab’s Pasadena offices, has obtained $8.5 million in venture funding and is moving to Northern California.
Insider Pages has gained traction on the idea that referrals from friends and family are more meaningful than strangers’ testimonials. The business started as a way for people to share their “little black book” of home contractors, tailors, pool guys, landscapers, dentists and shoe repair shops. The site has more than half a million user reviews of about 300,000 local businesses.
Insider Pages has 25 employees, and will move its headquarters to Redwood Shores this week. A handful of sales and marketing employees will stay in Pasadena.
“This is us getting out there and trying to make it on our own,” said Chief Executive Stuart MacFarlane. “We feel ready to do this.”
The Series B funding from backers like Sequoia Capital, Softbank and Idealab helped, he added. So did building a more robust management team. In the last four months, the company has added vice presidents of engineering, marketing and operations.
Buzzing
Tired of social networking sites yet? Make room for one more.
L.A.-based Buzznet Inc. has launched a community social-networking Web site that takes a different tack. Most sites revolve around users creating personal profiles, while members troll the site looking for a potential “friend.” Attractive pictures and quirky or suggestive details help; it’s all about drawing people to your profile. Buzznet revolves around events or ideas, rather than around individuals.
The site is the official online community for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, coming up in April, organized by Anschutz Entertainment Group. Users interested in the indie rock festival can come to the site and find a community of people who already share a common interest. If a date or a connection ensues, so much the better.
But founders Anthony Batt and Marc Brown take pains to say the site is about more than just hooking up. “People don’t always want to get picked up on,” Batt said. “We want to create a genuine community, a shared experience. And we’re seeing traction.”
Launched in beta in 2004, the site boasts 2 million unique visitors per month, according to executives. Its revenue model involves sponsorships and advertising. The goal is “branded communities.” For the South by Southwest music festival last month in Austin, Tex., Buzznet created a community sponsored by Red Bull.
Their next idea? A Nike/L.A. Marathon-branded community, joining runners and Nike fans alike.
Backed by a 2005 funding round from Anthem Venture Partners, Buzznet just launched in Japan and is headed to the U.K. Though the company is not profitable yet, it has secured advertising and promotions partnerships with Atlantic Records, Warner Bros., AEG, and others.
PayPal’s Payload
The private rocket launch business is still trying to get off the ground. El Segundo-based Space Exploration Technologies Inc. recently launched its first rocket, called Falcon 1, from the Marshall Islands only to watch it explode about a minute later. SpaceX is the pet project of PayPal Inc. co-founder Elon Musk, who has reportedly spent $100 million over the past four years on the venture. A possible fuel leak may have caused the engine fire at the bottom of the 70-foot rocket. The rocket’s lost payload was a U.S. Air Force Academy science satellite intended to monitor space plasma, valued at about $750,000.
*Staff Reporter Hilary Potkewitz can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 226, or by e-mail at
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