Charlottesville, Va.-based startup Moonlighting has closed a $2.3 million funding round led by Gannett, McClatchy and tronc (formerly known as Tribune Publishing), a trio of some of the biggest media syndicates in the country. Moonlighting is the developer of a mobile app that serves as a marketplace where people can find small businesses and freelancers looking for short-term work in activities like gardening, graphic design, dog walking or even a wedding officiant.
"It's Craigslist without the creepiness," Moonlighting co-founder and CEO Jeff Tennery told DC Inno in an interview. "Connecting to social media tells you everything about who you're selecting. The platform lets the people looking for gigs put their best foot forward."
Though slightly less than two years old, Moonlighting has been growing at a rapid clip, with more than 200,000 unique users in 140 cities. The new funding will help Moonlighting expand its market in those cities, which also happen to be where the three big media backers have their outlets, with a potential 200 million-person audience. That's not a coincidence. All of the outlets connected to the media company will promote Moonlighting, including some of the biggest news outlets in the country like the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA TODAY.
"It's a way to resurrect the classifieds in newspapers."
"It's a way to resurrect the classifieds in newspapers," Tennery said. "[The media syndicates] will market us and get sales revenue from new sources."
The combination of trustworthy connections and the payment system on the app all have their appeal, Tennery said. That's especially the case with freelancers, who have to deal with their own complex maze of finding work and getting paid for it. About 70 percent of the people on Moonlighting are freelancers, so making them happy is important, but Tennery said the variety of features on the app offer more ways for freelancers to make money quickly than they would have on their own.
"It's like a Swiss Army Knife for freelancers," Tennery said, adding that Moonlighting itself is among the customers that use the app to find people to fill its needs. "We definitely eat our own dog food here."
