WhiteFence, the Texas based comparison site for your home services, has raised $14 million in Series B round of funding. Adams Street Partners joined in as the new investor in addition to Internet Capital Group Inc. WhiteFence comes into play when you are out in the market to get the best deal on your basic home services including electricity, natural gas, home phone, Internet, cable and satellite TV and more.
From the first looks about the service I find it difficult to justify this big round of funding. I don’t think WhiteFence is really crawling the web for pricing information. Most likely they are getting rate feeds directly from utility providers which is difficult to negotiate but way easier to implement. Even otherwise, how much choice does a consumer really have for such kind of services? At most you will have either 1 or 2 companies providing Internet service in your area, 1 for electricity, and similar small numbers for other services. And how many times can you really switch providers when you just 1 or 2 options?
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WhiteFence
April 27, 2007 at 1:58 pm |
[...] Just like the big funding round for WhiteFence last month, another player in the same space, AllConnect, has raised $15 million in funding. Covestco and Nth Power participated in the funding round. AllConnect’s promise is to make your consumer utility search easier. Partnering with over 30 power companies and other services services providers, AllConnect gets all the data at one place. As in the case of WhiteFence, the question still remains - Why would anyone search for pricing from electricity provider or telephone company when all he has is 1 or atmost 2 options to choose from? I am little lost out here. Okay I get the fact they are trying to push things on to visitors on their site, the company’s foundation itself feels shaky. Tags: [...]