According to a recent Reuter’s story, internet advertising Groupon is looking to raise 950 million.
Groupon is literally the fastest growing company EVER – http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-groupon-facebook-twitter-next-web-phenom.html
They turned down a 6 billion dollar offer from Google. You can read about the offer here http://mashable.com/2010/11/30/google-groupon-6-billion/
Groupon’s business model is highly profitable. I signed up for the service a couple months ago after reading about them in Forbes. They offer coupon’s (which are called “groupons”) on their local websites like http://www.groupon.com/subscriptions/new?utm_content=2s301&division_p=providence
If you purchase the coupon for say $25 for a $50 diner, Groupon get’s ½ of the amount. The advertiser gets a customer (that is if you redeem the coupon – which doesn’t hurt Groupon if you don’t).
One of the deals sold 2000 – $25 Groupons. That’s $50,000 or $25,000 for Groupon. There isn’t much website overhead and they only offer a couple Groupons at a time on their site. Brilliant.
The point is, here’s a business that is growing FASTER than any other company ever. All good ideas have not been discovered.