Groupon Expands To 50 More Cities

By Jake Guidry in News on Dec 4, 2009 10:01PM

Chicago's own Groupon, the nifty website that offers community-based local coupons at big price cuts, has secured $30 million in new funding and will soon expand its service from 26 cities to 76, The Huffington Post reports. The hot, growing company received most of the new funding from Accel Partners, whose notable investments include Facebook and Macromedia. The expansion cities expect to go live in 2010.

2009 has been a great year for Groupon, using a unique system of group purchasing to secure low prices as much as 90 percent off. Each day, Groupon sends out an email of an exclusive deal on everything from beer tastings to Chicago Fire games, with prices locked in by the buying power of a large community. "All around, it's been a great year," said founder Andrew Mason. "We knew some extra money could help us increase our rate of customer acquisition and focus on building new technology, and, just in general, grow faster."

We're excited to see what else the hefty chunk of new funding can do to expand the company. Multiple deals per day? Bigger price cuts? Bigger, broader events? The way we see it, Groupon's got nowhere to go but up, but we do hope that, despite its rapid growth, the site maintains the local flair that has made it a unique and worthwhile service all this time.