Nextdoor Aims at International With New $60 Million Investment From Kleiner Perkins, Tiger Global

Nextdoor, the locally driven private social network for neighborhoods, announced on Tuesday that it raised a round of funding, adding another set of high-profile venture firms to the list of the company’s backers.

The $60 million round was led jointly by new investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Tiger Global Management, with participation from Comcast Ventures and existing investors Benchmark, Greylock Partners and Shasta Ventures.

The move, which comes just as Nextdoor celebrates its second anniversary since launch, brings the total amount of funding raised to about $100 million over the last 18 months, according to the company. CEO Nirav Tolia positions it as a strategic move, bolstering the company’s coffers as it gears up for a push into international expansion.

“We needed first of all to make sure we had our domestic house in order; then, second, to get the right talent in building,” Tolia said, pointing to Minna King, his hire for VP of International. “Third for us is to be demand-driven about our international road map. Where are we receiving most demand in foreign countries?”

Nextdoor plans to move into English-speaking countries in the first part of 2014, targeting places such as Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa before moving on to other areas, like Brazil and Japan, which Tolia said are next on the road map. The company, which does not disclose specifics on its user numbers, said it was now being used in more than 22,000 neighborhoods across the U.S., with nearly half of its members regularly contributing content. Earlier this year, Nextdoor released its first smartphone apps for consumers.

The very nature of the service, however, makes growth a particularly interesting challenge. Positioned as a privacy-focused network for those within neighborhoods to communicate with one another around local issues, the startup strictly limits communication to those within the same general nearby areas. Identity, too, is checked through address verification or other methods.

For these high-profile venture firms, it is a big continued bet on a startup focused on the local space, a problematic area that has seen many companies try — and fail — to solve it. (AOL’s cash-bleeding Patch initiatives immediately come to mind.) Nextdoor makes no revenue to speak of as of yet, though it will have $90 million in the bank to expand abroad after this round.

Kleiner’s John Doerr, who is bullish on the social-local-mobile sector, and will take a position as a special adviser with the new investment, thinks Nextdoor is uniquely positioned to approach the issue of local — especially when contrasted against Patch.

“There’s nothing inherently social about Patch, no viral properties that go along with it,” Doerr said in an interview. “While Patch owns the content, it doesn’t really own the graph,” he said, referring to a common term first made popular by Facebook’s large map of social members, and later by LinkedIn’s professional user base. “The converse is true for Nextdoor. There are strongly viral properties, neighbors are strongly encouraged to invite others.”

Kleiner’s Mary Meeker will also help advise Nextdoor as part of the investment, while Tiger Global’s Lee Fixel will focus mostly on helping the startup’s international growth efforts — his firm’s particular area of expertise.