Yelp, the community-led local search site, announced that private equity firm Elevation Partners has agreed to make a $25 million investment in the company through the purchase of Series E preferred stock.
According to a press release, Elevation Partners said it will also seek to increase its total investment in Yelp to $100 million through a planned purchase of shares from vested employees and other eligible shareholders. The details of the offer to purchase are expected to be announced to qualified participants in the near future.
“We have been able to grow and scale our business quickly, even in the tough economic environment of the last year — a clear indicator that we’ve only begun to realize the potential of local search,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp CEO and co-founder, in a statement.
“We believe Yelp is revolutionizing how consumers discover local businesses,” added Marc Bodnick, Elevation Partners managing director and co-founder.
Yelp said it plans to use the additional funding to deepen its market leadership position throughout the United States, accelerate growth in Canada and throughout Western Europe and continue the development of innovative mobile applications.
The company entered eight new U.S. markets in 2009, as well as launched in the U.K. and Ireland. Additionally, Yelp added four new platforms: iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Android. Traffic on the site increased to more than 26 million unique visitors in the month of December 2009 and review content doubled in the last year to more than 9 million reviews.
Yelp earns revenues from search and display advertising and also offers free tools for local businesses to market to the Yelp consumer community.
