Sgrouples, the privacy-centric, next generation social networking service, today announces that it has closed its Series Seed II, a $1.2M raise. Sgrouples' CEO, Mark Weinstein commented today, 'We oversold - which means that we turned investors away. Not something typically done in Silicon Valley, but our team has worked hard to make our network a platform of the people, so it was only right that we went with investors who share a common mindset.' Combined with Series Seed I which closed for $600k in June, 2013, Sgrouples has raised a total of $1.8M in Seed funding.

'Americans care about privacy,' Weinstein continues. 'A 2014 Harris Interactive Poll found that 99% of Americans now claim to care about their online privacy. 71% 'care deeply.' Repeated privacy violations by Internet companies and government agencies have caused consumers of all ages to view social media as a venue for spying and stalking, instead of one for safe personal connection. NSA's Prism and cyber bullying exacerbate this. The fatal design flaw is that companies like Facebook and Google have uncontrolled access to our personal data, regardless of their so-called 'privacy settings.' Our data is scraped, tracked, harvested, and leaked to/by strangers, employers, colleges, advertisers, insurers, the NSA, data brokers and criminals. Consumers are the product, marketers are the customer. Sgrouples seeks to change that. This investment is a significant step toward that change. Beyond this, we anticipate a future round of $15M - $20M.'

Sgrouples Investor Team

'We have a blue ribbon investor team,' says Weinstein. 'Each of them has invested their personal money into Sgrouples Seed rounds.' The group includes:

John Friedman, a leading Venture Capitalist, Founder and Managing Director of Easton Capital in NYC.
Jack Canfield: Known worldwide as 'America's Success Coach.' Followed by millions of people, Jack is the author of 'Chicken Soup For The Soul' and 'The Success Principles.'
Marci Shimoff: Connector to women. Marci has written many best-sellers translated around the world, 'Love For No Reason,' 'Happy For No Reason,' all the 'Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul' books, and more.
Tom Myers: Leading Investment Advisor in the USA. Tom is ranked in the top 50 of 'Barron's TOP 100 Investment Advisors.'
Mykola Latansky: The leading personal improvement guru of Eastern Europe.
Dan Phillips: Leading tech entrepreneur who created and ran the UMASS technology incubator, and sold one of his companies to DELL. Dan is currently the CEO of CloudHealthTech.com.
Jack Sweeney: CEO of SevOne and an Operating Partner with Bain Capital Ventures.
For more information, visit: www.sgrouples.com

About Sgrouples

Sgrouples is the multi-platform, privacy-centric, all-in-one social network that lets individuals and organizations connect and share with the people and communities they care about. Sgrouples provides users with the world's most powerful social experience and peace-of-mind with its Privacy Bill of Rights. Sgrouples members own their own content. Their personal information is kept private. There is no spying, no tracking, and no stalking. Sgrouples makes it easy for members to allow or deny access to any content they post. Sgrouples keeps its promises; if the company ever changes its policy, it promises to email every Sgrouples user and tell them exactly what was changed and give them the option, in the email, to download their content and delete their account.