Tupalo.com, a Vienna based social yellow pages Startup, and a european competitor to Qype, has raised an undiclosed second round from Austria’s leading yellow pages publisher Herold.at.
Herold took a 24% stake in Tupalo back in 2009, and since then provided the startup with business listing’s data from Austria. The new funding is primarly going to be used for creating premium products. The Herold investment means Tupalo gets access to a 250 person sales although whether that is a plus is debatable. Qype, which is also expanding it’s service to other countries, does not have a real-world salesforce but it is still far bigger in terms of countries of operation and traffic.
However, European Directories, a leading european Yellow Pages publisher and Herold’s mother firm, which was recently trying to sell off its assets to creditors, has also hired former Google Europe COO Ben Legg in order to expand its online strategy. Tupalo.com will be part of the entire European Directories group and thus access the Europe-wide business listings and combined salesforce.
Aside from the investment, Tupalo also released their iPhone app (iTunes link) and plans to expand it’s mobile version for various devices.