LivingSocial Inks $176M of Planned $400M

Daily deal company LivingSocial disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it has raised $176 million in new financing, with plans to raise a total of $400 million. Reuters, citing an unnamed source, reported that the new financing “doubles the valuation of the daily deals service from its last fundraising round in April.” LivingSocial was planning to go public earlier this year in an IPO that may have raised about $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion to $15 billion. In the summer, the company picked Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank to lead-underwrite the IPO, Reuters wrote. The company’s venture investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, US Venture Partners and Grotech Ventures.

(Reuters) – LivingSocial is raising $400 million in a deal that doubles the valuation of the daily deals service from its last fundraising round in April, according to a person familiar with the matter.

LivingSocial, the second-largest daily deal company in the U.S. behind Groupon Inc, disclosed the new fundraising round in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

According to the filing, LivingSocial has raised $176 million, with plans to raise $400 million in total. The company did not disclose the investors, or the valuation, though a person familiar with the matter said the company’s valuation was roughly $6 billion.

LivingSocial was planning to go public earlier this year in an IPO that may have raised about $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion to $15 billion. In the summer, the company picked Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank to lead-underwrite the IPO.

However, the stock market slumped in July and August, putting a lot of IPOs on hold. Groupon (GRPN.O) finally went public in early November, but the company’s shares have slumped below its $20 IPO price in recent weeks.

The New York Times reported last month that LivingSocial was aiming to raise $200 million at a valuation of more than $5 billion.

In April, LivingSocial raised $400 million in a round of funding that included LightSpeed Venture Partners and Amazon.com, giving it a value of about $3 billion.

Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is also an investor in LivingSocial.

(Reporting by Sarah McBride and Alistair Barr; Editing by Bernard Orr)