"The misunderstanding about Meetup is that it's just about social gatherings, but instead, it's about what's happening in the Meetup ecosystem with millions of people who use it to form organizations with members, dues, leadership committees and sponsorships," Heiferman (pictured) tells Tech Confidential. "We need to build the technology to enable people to form these 21st-century associations."
When asked how much capital Meetup has raised, Heiferman quips, "More than $1 million and less than $100 million."
Heiferman hopes to use the funding to grow the base of registered members from 5 million to 500 million and revenues from the current $10 million to $100 million.
"We had our first almost-profitable month in June," Heiferman says. "Ninety percent of our revenue stream is Meetup organizers who pay us $20 per month to use our system to form community groups." The other 10% comes from Google ads and charter sponsorships.
Future sources of revenue will arise from helping Meetup organizations to find sponsorships, he says, adding that the startup also plans to expand internationally.
"We're using the round of funding to ramp up the technology to give people better tools for self-organizing groups," says Meetup Inc. CEO Scott Heiferman about the backing the six-year-old New York startup received from Union Square Ventures, announced Wednesday.
