Shooger Secures First Outside Investment to Expand its Popular Mobile Network

MIAMI, July 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile community-powered loyalty network Shooger today announced that the company has secured its first outside capital funding with a $5 million investment from South Florida's Hudson Capital Group (HCG).

The investment will enable Shooger to expand its sales and marketing capacity as it continues to innovate its increasingly popular service, offering mobile users fun and engaging ways to get access to unique, local experiences, and merchants a powerful platform to build better engagement and loyalty with their community.

"We are thrilled to have HCG on board to help us grow," said Shooger CEO Alex Stancioff. "We're off to a great start in Miami, and now we're looking forward to expanding our mission of working for the Shooger community in more cities."

Stancioff says HCG immediately recognized the opportunity for the Shooger platform to leverage the mobile revolution and drive business to local merchants. "We are very impressed with the depth of experience and creativity on the Shooger team, the market potential for this concept and the truly novel approach that leverages the smartphone revolution with a localized twist," HCG President Steve Hudson said. "Unlike daily deal sites that do not help to build either customer loyalty or the merchant's long term revenues, Shooger is focused on building real, lasting engagement between local shoppers and merchants, through the creative use of crowd-sourced content and loyalty focused deals."

The Shooger team's experience in the mobile, creative and startup space runs deep. Three of the co-founders, Alex Stancioff, Donick Cary and Milen Mishkovsky, co-founded SugarShack Animation, the studio behind the mobile animated series "Lil' Bush", later picked up by Comedy Central to become the first mobi-series ever to move from cell phones to television. In addition to creating Lil' Bush, Cary is an Emmy-winning writer and producer, having worked on "Late Night with David Letterman," "The Simpsons" and "Bored to Death" amongst others. Milen is a serial entrepreneur, partnering with Alex to co-found CodeSpring, an enterprise software development company, and Click Forward, a first-of-a-kind award-winning search engine advertising company, both of which were acquired by Yellowbook, USA in 2006.

Shooger co-founder and President Dr. Anand Narasimhan is a highly regarded entrepreneur in the mobile space. He is a founder and board member of Voxiva, Inc., recently recognized as one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world by Fast Company. He was also the founding CTO of J2 Global Communications/EFAX, a leading global unified messaging provider.

The free Shooger app is available on iPhone, (with Android and BlackBerry versions coming soon), giving users the ability to instantly spot and share local finds from the growing community of in-the-know Shooger users.

To download Shooger and tap into the sweet life, go to www.shooger.com.

About Shooger

Shooger is a rapidly growing network of real people who share local finds that help save people time, money and give them the latest inside scoop. We work on behalf of our community by negotiating deals and special access to these local hot spots so our users can buy them instantly on their phones and online. Shooger offers merchants a powerful platform to communicate with our users to build better engagement and loyalty. Shooger is headquartered in Miami, Fla. For more information, visit www.shooger.com.

SOURCE Shooger