Perhaps now that Groupon is happily being valued at $4.75 billion, investors all over the world are getting all the more interested in the local group daily deal platforms. Brand new Moroccan clone MyDeal is rumored to be raising a round and France’s Dealissime closed its first round of funding back in July. And now another French Groupon clone, Bon-Privé, is announcing that it has raised €1.5 million.
This is the first round of funding for the French startup founded back in February 2010. In-line with most of the Groupon clones, Bon-Privé offers between 40 and 90% discounts on exclusive offers to bars, restaurants, shows, etc. The site is currently live in 4 French cities – Paris, Toulouse, Nantes and Nice – and is planning to cover 10 French cities by the end of the year, starting with Bordeaux, Lille, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg.
Like everywhere else, France counts a fair share of Groupon clones – with some of them specializing in a single product, like how Vinobest specializes in wine offers. And then there are a number of offer comparison sites that should help users find the best deals around. For France, these are sites like OhMyDeal, AllCityBon and Top-Deal.fr. New York-based DealSurf – which is more of a deal aggregator and search engine – is also available in France and should help users make better sense of all the deals being thrown around.
Also, if anyone out there thinks the Groupon model slightly resembles that of French private sales site, Vente-Privée, you’re not alone. Vente-Privée founder, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, actually flat-out suggested on stage at LeWeb that Groupon was based on his company’s model.
Bon-Privé currently has some 300 businesses that are providing offers to their 150,000 French user-base. Yet, even with their plans to conquer more French territory, Groupon is still in the lead with offers available in roughly 30 French cities. Still, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the deals are any better; personally, I think Groupon risks sending a few too many emails and there isn’t always a lot of variation in the offers provided. But there are still great deals to be had and it will surely suffice until Dealissime (currently in Paris, Marseille and Lyon) or Bon-Privé make it to additional French towns.