TinyURL Rival Bit.ly Raises $2 Million
Posted by: siliconalleyinsider in Silicon Alley Insider
Bit.ly, a URL shortening service similar to TinyURL, has raised $2 million in Series A financing from O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures and angel investors, including Mitch Kapor and Howard Lindzon (an investor in our parent company). Betaworks, the NYC-based fund/incubator, will spin Bit.ly out as a separate company.
What’s the point? There’s actually several potential commercial applications for Bit.ly, such as renting out the technology to companies to use with custom domain names. For instance, if we wanted to have our own vanity short URLs for The Business Insider posts, we could potentially get a domain like tbiurl.com and have Bit.ly generate short URLs with that domain.
Beyond shorter URLs — handy on Twitter, etc. — Bit.ly also provides analytics, Twitter link tracking, etc. Some 20 million people clicked on Bit.ly URLs last month, according to GigaOm.
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
- Big Funding Round, Big Names For BetaWorks
- Betaworks Launches Bit.ly, A Smarter TinyURL
- Borthwick, Betaworks, and the Search for the Incubator Holy Grail