Social Travel App Where I've Been Raises $750K From Groupon Co-Founders

Popular social travel application Where I’ve Been, has raised $750,000 in additional funding from Lightbank, the recently launched investment fund created by Groupon investors and co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell. Whereivebeen.com and its Facebook application allows members to chart their past, present and future travel plans while discovering destinations and deals for their next adventure.

The Chicago-based Where I’ve Been plans to use the new funding towards user acquisition efforts. Where I’ve Been is best known for its Facebook app, which currently has over 1 million active users. The app allows users to share maps of all the countries and cities they’ve traveled to. The startup uses proprietary software to power its social mapping technology that captures users’ past travel history, future plans, and allows them to share their maps and profile with their social networks.

Where I’ve Been previously raised $1 million in angel funding in 2008. The startup was rumored to have been acquired by TripAdvisor a few years ago for $3 million, but that report ended up being false.

This round of funding marks one of Lightbank’s first investments since its launch a few weeks ago. Lightbank was established as a quasi startup incubator and investment fund to help support the entrepreneurial talent in Chicago. Lefkofsky and Keywell also seeded and co-founded Groupon, which reportedly raised a new round of funding at a $1.2 billion valuation.

Disclosure: My husband is an employee at Groupon.