Bellevue, WA based social network for Real Estate for professionals, ActiveRain  received a $2.75 million series A investment from lead generation company HouseValues.

With over 65,000 non-paying members, this will be the first time ActiveRain has taken any type of outside funding.

Founders Matt Heaton and Jonathan Washburn have big plans for the $2.75m. They will continue to improve and optimize the ActiveRain platform, build out Localism (their consumer portal) and finalize their “Out-Side Blogging platform. The details of the blogging platform have not been released but Heaton did say that would cost $100 per year.

…the company is moving forward with plans to launch an outside blogging platform, which will enable real estate agents to create and operate blogs for their individual brands that aren’t walled inside the ActiveRain social network.

The outside blogging platform, currently in beta form, is expected to launch in early February, Heaton said.

It will be interesting to see how the “Out-Side Blogging” platform will perform against the multitude of free blogging platforms. One of the key reasons why ActiveRain has been so popular is because of its free service and networking capabilities. It will be essential to keep the networking features with the new platform.

You can view more on the subject at Jonathan Washburn’s blog. Jonathan also answers a few questions regarding the investment from Housevalues and how it will affect ActiveRain.

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