Juice In The City, a site that pairs moms with local businesses and daily deals, announced tonight that it has raked in $6 million in seed funding from Tandem Entrepreneurs and HU Investments. The startup will use the infusion of funding to continue pushing into new markets and to create jobs for moms across the country.
Founded in 2010, Juice In The City aims to bring moms big deals on things they really want to do, so the startup features daily deals at locally owned businesses — just like that Groupon thing. Yet, unlike Groupon, Juice In The City’s core team consists of a growing community of mom bloggers, mom groups, local vendors and local sales moms. As you can tell, there are some moms involved. Take that, Groupon.
This group of local business consultant mothers identify and write about the deals that are then offered on the site, which means that moms recommend their own favorite local businesses and services, based on personal experience, so that other maternal-type figures (okay, moms) looking for good deals know that they are getting recommendations and deals from sources who have their interest at heart.
Juice in the City customers get some pretty good deals thanks to their mom workforce (because who doesn’t love moms?), who in turn earn a percentage of the deal’s revenue. Everyone wins. Especially moms. And seeing as mothers are often the most loyal patrons of local businesses, and, in turn, local businesses know that moms are their quality customer and core consumer, Juice In The City has positioned itself to be of real value as a conduit through which to reach them.
It’s also for this very reason that the startup thinks it may have solved the Groupon customer retention problem, as 80 percent of local vendors have indicated they are interested in working with Juice In The City again.
The startup joins Plum District in this “Groupon for Moms” space, another neat business that marries the Mary Kay sales approach with the daily deals model. Plum District raked in $8.5 million from Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst in January and is scaling its team of sales moms into more than 25 regions. Moms are clearly a force to be reckoned with in the daily deals space. Look out.