David Grant

Sugar Media Say Buh-Bye to NBC Universal–Raises $16 Million From Sequoia Capital, Buys Shopflick and More

Kara Swisher in News on June 1, 2009 at 3:33 pm PT

San Franciso-based women-focused online media site Sugar Inc. made it first significant move into the local market by announcing its purchase of FreshGuide. The locally focused FreshGuide makes women-aimed city guides that show off daily offers in a wide rage of arenas, such as beauty, health and fitness. It also has another offering, BookFresh, which does online booking for spas and salons. San Francisco-based Sugar Media, which specializes in Web sites aimed at women, cut its ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capitol. Sequoia has been an existing venture investor, having put $5 million into the start-up in late 2006. NBC, a unit of GE, invested $10 million in 2007. Sugar, which runs the flagship PopSugar.com site, also announced it has bought video shopping start-up, Shopflick, and had hired its founder and CEO to run a new Los Angeles-based entertainment unit.