LiveDeal Partners w/ Canadian Media Company Torstar to Open LiveDeal Canada

[mandy]

LiveDeal.com
(http://www.livedeal.com), one of the nation's leading free local online classifieds
sites, today announced a joint venture with Canadian media company Torstar
Corporation...aimed at delivering one of the largest free local online classifieds site for Canada
later this year....

The joint venture between...marries the strength of LiveDeal's industry-leading Web classifieds technology with the
extensive local reach of Torstar's Canadian media brands including the Toronto
Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper; CityMedia Group's family of daily and
community newspapers in Southwestern Ontario; and Metroland's 90+ community
newspapers in Southern Ontario.

The resulting joint venture, called LiveDeal Canada, will be a free local
online classifieds site

full article: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-25-2005/0004194243&EDATE=

[amy]

As part of the partnership with Torstar, the company also secured $4.85 million in funding

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LIVEDEAL.COM, ONE OF THE LEADING FREE LOCAL ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS PROVIDERS, SECURES $4.85 MILLION IN SERIES B FUNDING

Canadian Media Company Torstar Takes Minority Stake, Venture Firm Draper Richards Joins Round; Investment to Support Company’s Rapid Domestic and International Expansion

SANTA CLARA , Calif. , October 25, 2005 -- LiveDeal.com (www.livedeal.com), one of the nation’s leading free local online classifieds sites, today announced the company has secured $4.85 million in Series B funding. The round was led by one of Canada’s major media companies, Torstar Corporation, which took a minority stake in LiveDeal.com. Also investing in the round was venture capital firm Draper Richards, which is managed by Silicon Valley venture capital luminary Bill Draper, an early investor in Skype, Hotmail and GoTo.com (Overture) among others. In addition, the round included seasoned individual investors from eBay, HP and the real estate industry. The funding will be used to further accelerate LiveDeal’s strong market acceptance and expand LiveDeal’s free local online classifieds platform both domestically and internationally.

“Millions of people from all walks of life are embracing the benefits of LiveDeal’s free local online classifieds,” said Rajesh Navar, LiveDeal’s founder and CEO. “This investment by Torstar and one of Silicon Valley’s most successful VC firms, is further validation of the strength of our technology platform and our value proposition to make local buying and selling easy and affordable.”

In a separate announcement today, LiveDeal.com also announced the formation of a new joint venture with Torstar to deliver a free online classifieds site in Canada later this year. This partnership is the first step of LiveDeal’s international expansion strategy.

“As one of the most-respected media companies in Canada, Torstar is an incredible partner and we look forward to strong growth as we embrace the Canadian online classifieds opportunity,” said Steve Harmon, VP corporate development for LiveDeal.

LiveDeal.com was founded in 2003 by Navar, an original member of the engineering and management teams at eBay and other successful Internet companies. Navar has assembled a senior management team that brings a depth of expertise across the Internet, ecommerce and media industries, and who have previously helped grow successful start-ups and create innovative technologies.

More than one million unique users visit LiveDeal.com each month to buy and sell items across a variety of categories. The company recently relocated to new headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. to accommodate its continued rapid expansion and additional personnel requirements. LiveDeal is hiring across a number of critical functions, including engineering, product management and marketing to support the company’s explosive growth. Revenues are also keeping pace with LiveDeal’s growth, up 10 times over 2004 levels.

http://info.livedeal.com/aboutLD/press_1...nding.html

[bargainbloodhound]

...and it opened Monday: www.livedeal.ca

TORONTO (CP) - Newspaper giant Torstar (TSX:TS.NV.B) launched a free Canadian online classified site Monday as part of its $3-million-US joint venture with California-based LiveDeal.com.


Canadian counterpart LiveDeal.ca derives its classified content from Torstar dailies to provide a "comprehensive" online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers, the newspaper company said.

full press release: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060116/...edeal_ca_1