[Germany/UK] Mycitydeal , the recently launched German Groupon clone, has secured €4 million in a first round of funding, reports paidContent. The backing comes from Holtzbrinck Ventures, eVenture Capital Partners, and Rocket Internet, amongst others. The new investment will be used primarily to expand into the UK, says the company. No easy task considering how crowded this space is fast becoming. Not only has Chicago, US-based Groupon, which is backed to the tune of $35 million, launched its own London offering, there are at least 5 UK startups of their own already dabbling with the Groupon model.
On that note, Mycitydeal (which is now known simply as Citydeal in Germany), has a .co.uk version of its site live, though currently all it features is placeholder text. With the new funding in place and an office in London, we wouldn’t imagine it will be long now before the lights get turned on though. Mycitydeal, originally backed by Germany’s Samwer brothers , replicates the Groupon model almost exactly. The site features “one daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy”. If enough people sign-up in time, the heavily discounted offer stands (in the form of a voucher), otherwise the deal falls through. The idea is that those interested in the offer will encourage others to sign-up too, therefore increasing the chance of it standing.
