CafeMom, a social network for mothers

August 22, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

cafemom.bmpCafeMom, a no-frills social network site for mothers, has raised $5 million in funding.

The site is owned by New York’s CMI Marketing, and gets its backing from Highland Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, who have supported the company for seven years, helping pump $50 million into the company — much of it coming during the last Internet boom. VentureWire (subscription required) first reported the funding news.

The company has struggled, flirting at times with profitability. Women-oriented sites are experiencing robust growth, as noted in previous coverage, suggesting this is a good a time as any for the company to get a second wind.

CafeMom’s action comes from participation with in certain groups, for example “Stay At Home Moms” which has 16,000 members. Users offer tips and practical advice. Other popular groups are “Toddler Moms” and “Raising Boys.” The company says it expects two million unique users in August. Some of that traffic is being bought with advertising on search engines. This morning, when we searched for “social network mothers” on Google, for example, CafeMom was advertising on the right hand side.

MomJunction.com, a similar company, raised $1.5 million in a first round of capital.

Other backers of CMI marketing over the years were Himalaya Capital Ventures and Perseus.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • great post- I love to learn about new social networks. 16K stay at home moms need products to buy- so advertising opportunities must be through the roof.

    I would like to know what you think of VentureWire subscriptions- are they worth it for the industry news covered?
  • Dawn
    Hi Lets be friends.
  • Jamie
    Cafemom is just a bunch of catty women trying to make each other feel bad about themselves, or at least it was when I was a member. I'm sure there are other networking sites where you don't feel like a loser when you log off.
  • Lillian
    In my opinion.. Cafemom has some women that are very nice . I was a member from the start.. UNTIL, I realized the censorship and the lack of censoring hurtful horrible things that are said about the troops families.. women calling other womens children and husbands and wives baby killers.. Cafemom has a way of allowing these things to remain posted , while deleting quickly what THEY don't seem to agree with.. I am very very disappointed that I had toleave since I did make a few awesome friends there, however I personally cannot be a part of any social network that allows the troops to be spoken about in that way, its one thing to be against the war , anothr to wish our brave men and women dead .. ( this was also said by many ) I don't understand how any military mom, daughter , etc.. would want to be a part of a site that allows this nonsense to go on.. also, my friends and I had a stalker that was following us (online) and harrasing for almost a year and the person was able to keep coming back on, I would NOT reccomend this site oany freedom loving person.. it's like a communist site in my opinion...