Online retailer Amazon has invested $175m for a strategic stake in discount coupon company LivingSocial.
Amazon has traditionally avoided corporate venturing but in October became a limited partner in venture capital (VC) firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s $250m sFund for social media deals.
LivingSocial said it was booking revenues of more than $1m per day on average from its 10 million subscribers and was expecting turnover of more than $500m next year.
Tim O’Shaughnessy, chief executive of LivingSocial, said: "To be the biggest player in the local commerce space there is no one better to work with than Amazon."
LivingSocial recently bought adventure company Urban Escapes, a controlling stake in Australia-based Jump On It and launched three subsidiaries, LivingSocial Family Edition, Campus Deals and LivingSocial Escapes, to provide discounts in other areas.
VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners invested a further $8m was by to take the total raised this year by LivingSocial to $222m.
LivingSocial raised $39m at the start of the year from VC firms Grotech Ventures, Lightspeed, Revolution and US Venture Partners.
Amazon’s interest follows similar reports that search engine group Google was trying to buy LivingSocial’s peer, Groupon, for up to $6bn. Groupon is backed by Mail.ru, which in turn is part-owned by media group Naspers’ corporate venturing unit.