Power Pitch: Nextdoor

Name / Title / Company:

Nirav Tolia, CEO & Co-Founder of Nextdoor

What is the mission of your company?

Nextdoor's mission is to bring back a sense of community to the neighborhood — to leverage the power of technology to help people build happier, safer places to call home.

Explain your business model — how do you make money?

In terms of business model, Nextdoor is currently focused on delivering the best possible user experience so that neighbors everywhere can come together to build safer and stronger neighborhoods. We have not yet focused on revenue or monetization. When that time comes, we are committed to safeguarding users' information, so that no one will be inundated with banner ads, pop-ups, or messages from advertisers that can impede or denigrate the value of the website.

In all likelihood, our business model will focus on working with local businesses to provide special offers to members. This will not only benefit members by giving them access to deals they would not find elsewhere, but it also helps generate support for local businesses and in turn strengthens their own neighborhoods.

Who do you compete with in this space and how are you different?

Our closest competitor is simple email mailing lists like Yahoo! Groups. Email mailing lists (listservs) tend to be outdated technology that have not really evolved over the last decade. Nextdoor brings together recent innovations in social software with a strong focus on privacy to create a richer, trusted user experience.

Where are your headquarters?

San Francisco

Number of full-time employees?

36

Year Founded?

2010

Funds Raised?

$40.2 million

Key Investors?

Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Shasta Ventures and DAG Ventures

Prior experience

I was COO of Shopping.com, a company created through the merger of DealTime and Epinions, where I was CEO and Co-Founder. Prior to Epinions, I was an early employee at Yahoo. I received my Bachelor's degree from Stanford University.