Rover.com, the leading online community that connects dog owners with approved and reviewed in-home dog sitters, today announced $12 million in Series C funding. New investor Menlo Ventures led the round, which included existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Foundry Group and PetcoTM.

'Rover is a great example of the sharing economy at its best,' said Sunil Raman of Menlo Ventures, whose marquee marketplace investments include Uber and Poshmark. 'It turns out that there are a lot of pet owners in this country, and Rover allows families to quickly coordinate overnight pet care. After getting to know Aaron and his team, we were certain this was a passionate group chasing a huge market opportunity.'

Rover is the largest online pet services community with over 25,000 sitters in the United States and service available in every major city. Currently, more than 92 percent of the population lives within a short drive of a Rover sitter and demand for them is accelerating. New Rover sitters make an average of 50 times more in the their first 90 days than those who joined 18 months ago. Additionally, last year Rover signed an exclusive partnership with pet specialty retailer Petco. The Rover online community now totals about one million members nationwide.

'Our revenue grew 800 percent last year and are creating six-figure-earners on the Rover platform,' said Aaron Easterly, CEO of Rover. 'We care deeply about our customers. After all, we're in the business to help dogs and the people who love dogs. How can you not love that? It's our passion for dogs and the dog community that keeps us excited to come to work every day.'

Rover has secured nearly $25 million in funding to date. The company will use this investment to grow its employee headcount and expand the industry's most comprehensive product offering. In addition to connecting pet owners with sitters for overnight care, dog walking and in-home daycare services, the Rover platform offers free pet and sitter insurance, 24/7 vet consultation, mobile apps, photo sharing, videos of stay highlights, sitter background checks and customized tags.

Menlo Ventures' Sunil Raman and Venky Ganesan, whose investments include oDesk and Rev, will join the Rover Board of Directors as part of this financing.

About Rover

Rover.com is the leading online community that connects dog owners with trusted dog sitters. Rover believes that all dogs deserve safe, loving homes even when their owners are away. Its services provide an alternative to traditional caged boarding facilities or imposing on family and friends who are often asked to sit in a pinch. Rover offers the largest network of reviewed and approved sitters in the United States who will provide overnight care in either the owner's or sitter's home, dog walking and in-home daycare services. More than 92 percent of the population lives within a short drive of one of Rover's 25,000 sitters, and 95 percent of reviewed stays have received a perfect five-star rating. Additionally, Rover is committed to supporting animal shelters and companion animal programs across the nation. Rover makes it easy for sitters to donate a portion of their proceeds to local shelters through its Sit a Dog, Save a Life program, saving the lives of dogs everywhere.

About Menlo Ventures

Menlo Ventures provides capital for seed through growth technology companies in the consumer and enterprise sectors. For decades, the firm's market-driven research analysis has led to the identification of and successful exits in innovative technology markets. Notable research areas of investment include mobile (Siri, Uber, TeleNav), enterprise Storage (3PAR, Spinnaker Networks, Coraid), communications (Acme Packet, Cavium Networks), and consumer (Fab, Tumblr, Carbonite, Roku). Founded in 1976, Menlo's portfolio includes 70 public companies and more than 100 mergers and acquisitions. Throughout the firm's history, Menlo's deep network of portfolio entrepreneurs, angels, and advisors have been a key resource made available to all of our family of investments. Menlo Ventures has $4 billion under management and is currently investing Menlo Ventures XI, a $400 million fund with $20 million allocated to our Menlo Talent Fund for fast seed funding. For more information, visit www.menlovc.com.

About Madrona Venture Group

Madrona (www.madrona.com) has been investing in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest since 1995 and has been privileged to play a role in some of the region's most successful technology ventures. The firm invests predominantly in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum, including consumer Internet, commercial software and services, digital media and advertising, networking and cloud computing, and mobile. Madrona manages approximately $1 billion and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon.com, Apptio, Isilon Systems, and Redfin.