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 E-street.com said on Friday that it had secured STG750,000 (IEP955,000) in funding from an existing pool of private investors. According to the company, the money raised will be used for the ongoing expansion of E-street's services in Ireland and the UK.
"It will be used for the continued development of the technology side of the business and to develop new products, particularly in the content area," Alice Nugent, E-street.com Ireland's chief executive, told ElectricNews.Net.
Despite the technology downturn, Nugent said the company had little difficulty in raising the money. "Our investors have seen that it has taken us a while to develop our database and now they can see what is coming down the line they want to be part of it," she commented.
In addition, Nugent said that the company would seek to raise a further STG3 million in funding from institutional investors in the fourth quarter to help it proceed with its expansion plans in UK, which will see 34 British cities added to its service in the next 12 months. The company is also exploring the possibility of establishing a call centre operation in either Ireland or the UK.
Founded in 1998, E-street.com originally offered city guides to London and Bristol. At the start of this year it launched its Dublin service and in the last two months it launched its Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford services. It is expected to launch its guide to Belfast by the end of the year.
The city guides are offered on-line and through mobile devices connected to the wireless Internet. They contain details of places to visit, eat, drink, shop and stay, in the cities in which they operate. The company also provides location-based services that, for example, would allow a user to search for a nearby Indian restaurant or all the pubs in the Dublin 4 area.
E-street.com lists 8,000 businesses in Dublin and 7,000 between the other four Irish cities. The Dublin listings currently only cover the postal areas from Dublin 1 to Dublin 8 and coastal regions. Nugent said that the company would shortly expand its coverage to include the rest of the Dublin region.
Although Nugent declined to reveal user figures for its Irish service, she said that it had proven to be very popular so far. "The guides are doing very well and that is without a major marketing spend behind them," she remarked. Nugent added that in the next month E-street expected to announce deals and partnerships with a number of companies that will increase its visibility in Ireland.
E-street.com currently generates revenue from three areas - content provision, sales of data mining software it has developed, and providing market research to businesses.
E-street can be found at http://www.e-street.com.
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