Groupon rival Living Social has landed a US$175 million investment from online retail giant Amazon.
A second investor, Lightspeed Venture Partners, has also put $8 million in the shopping deals website.
Living Social plans to use the cash infusion to continue to roll out its offering in more locations. It currently has 10 million subscribers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Australia. The company expects to record $500 million in revenue in 2011.
Like Groupon, Living Social offers daily deals for local restaurants, shops and activities. For example, users may be offered a voucher that costs $10 but can be used to buy $20 worth of food at a nearby restaurant.
Living Social currently offers deals in 120 locations and launches an average of one new location a day, it said.
The cash infusion could help Living Social better compete with Groupon, which offers its service in 300 locations. Groupon has also been racking up major investments, with a $135 million infusion earlier this year from a pair of investment groups.
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com
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