By Nancy Dahlberg / ndahlberg@miamiherald.com
Merchants who complain about using Groupon may now have a more affordable and flexible alternative.
New World Angels is investing $225,000 in Fort Lauderdale-based LocalBlip to fund its market entry into South Florida. Through its website and mobile apps, LocalBlip provides merchants and consumers with more affordable and customizable local programming and marketing tools versus sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial that require expensive, inflexible contracts.
LocalBlip’s founder and CEO Nick Mazzio has identified the largest problem with current online couponing sites as not providing merchants the flexibility to adjust their offers in real time and being cost prohibitive for most small businesses. LocalBlip allows merchants to target local customers without long term contracts or onerous offer terms. Small businesses can now leverage the power of couponing and online marketing at a fraction of the cost of the current large discount/coupon sites.
“New World Angels is delighted to fund the initial roll out of LocalBlip to South Florida,” said NWA President Steve O’Hara, in a news release. “When our due diligence team, led by John Benckenstein and Randy Wood, provided its usual detailed insights, team member Barry Spiegel started using LocalBlip for his Dunkin’ Donuts franchises, affording us real time experience with the LocalBlip product.”
New World Angels is a group of 63 accredited, private investors that provide equity capital to early-stage entrepreneurial companies with a strong presence in Florida. NWA has invested $8 million in the last three years.