New DC based Web 2.0 Startup, Living Social, Funded

A few months ago I sat in on a discussion at SocialDevCamp East titled “Who Needs VC’s”. The panel was inspired by a group of people looking for funding, including a few who had been trying really hard for a long time. Much of the discussion centered around whether or not the Washington, DC area was a place where startup companies could find funding. While there isn’t a universal answer to this it is always good to see a startup that comes out of nowhere and gets funding, especially one that isn’t launched by a geek celebrity. Today’s public announcment that Living Social, a Georgetown based company, landed $5 million in venture capital from two LOCAL funds (Grotech and Steve Case). Contrast this with another the S o c i a l Gaming Network, a company that left the area for California after receiving funding. Both are web 2.0 companies and both were inspired by Facebook’s F8 open platform initiative. Both are companies run by good people. Let’s hope that the trend toward Web 2.0 startups getting DC funding and growing DC roots continues.