There may be hundreds of competitors out there, but Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) this week has confirmed itself as the biggest daily deals site of them all, not just in terms of users but value, as it raised $700 million in its IPO—the biggest in tech since Google (NSDQ: GOOG)—valuing the…

Furthering its expansion into the Asian market, LivingSocial is buying TicketMonster, South Korea’s largest daily deals site.

How many Keratin wraps, photography workshops and Hookah tokes does one person really need? After Groupon and LivingSocial, there are another 400 to 500 daily deal sites in the U.S., plus 200 more internationally—and very few people think the world needs that many. Expect plenty of consolidation in the next…

LivingSocial, the number two player after Groupon in the booming daily deals market, has selected three Wall Street banks to underwrite its initial public offering, CNBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) reported Friday. Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch division, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase will lead the IPO, which is expected to…

Going up against Groupon’s own plan to buy itself international scale, LivingSocial just acquired its way in to three more regions.

Four months after receiving a $175 million investment from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), LivingSocial has added $400 million in new funding. The huge round will help the daily deals site compete against archrival Groupon, which itself raised $950 million in funding earlier this year and is now reportedly plotting an initial…

How much of a break-out hit is LivingSocial’s daily deal of $10 for a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate? In 2010, LivingSocial’s most popular daily deal—$30 for $60 worth of wine on Wine.com—was sold 14,366 times. By contrast, the Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) deal had been purchased more than 900,000 times as…

Only a day after Groupon said it would expand aggressively abroad through the purchase of three daily deals services in India, Israel and South Africa, rival LivingSocial is following suit. The company is buying a majority stake in deals service Let’s Bonus, which in addition to its home country of…

EBay is on the acquisition trail as it looks for growth in new markets: today the auction giant announced that it would buy brands4friends, an online shopping club based in Germany, for €150 million ($200 million) in an all-cash deal. This is the second startup that eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) has…

Here’s a sign of how the market for companies seeking funding has loosened up over the last year. When Twitter last raised a round of venture funding in September 2009, it was only the second U.S.-based digital media company to raise $100 million-plus in a year and a half; one…

Moving to counter Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which is widely expected to soon announce a deal to purchase Groupon, Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) has just invested $175 million in Groupon rival LivingSocial. LivingSocial, which has ties to AOL (NYSE: AOL) founder Steve Case, is the second largest player in the daily deals…

LivingSocial, the fast-growing daily deals service, has made a small acquisition, signaling its desire to distinguish itself from rivals. The company has bought Urban Escapes, a company which organizes week-end excursions for young professionals. LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy tells us his company will now be able to advertise Urban Escapes…

Here’s another sign of how much promise investors think there is in the group-buying market: LivingSocial, which runs a group-buying service, has raised $14 million in a third round of funding, only a month-and-a-half after raising a $25 million second round. The company also has several social apps, including its…

LivingSocial, which develops various social apps and also runs a group-buying service, has raised $25 million in a second round of funding led by U.S. Venture Partners. The company’s flagship app is LivingSocial, which lets users indicate and share favorite things on social networks. More recently, however, a second service—LivingSocial…

Social app developer LivingSocial has raised an additional $5 million in funding, a spokeswoman tells us. The round was led by Grotech Ventures, AOL (NYSE: AOL) Founder Steve Case and his wife, Jean. LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy, who previously led the consumer products team at Case’s Revolution Health, also participated…

Who said anything about VCs no longer funding Facebook apps? LivingSocial, a developer of apps that help friends share recommendations for stuff like beer and books, has raised a $5 million first round led by Grotech Ventures, along with personal investments from Steve and Jean Case. The Washington, DC-based company…