Hybrid community come eCommerce startup Massdrop, Inc. has raised $40 million Series B in a round led by August Capital that included First Round Capital, Mayfield Fund, and Cowboy Ventures.

Founded in 2012, Massdrop offers a social come community forums service as a tool to support what is primarily an eCommerce company.

In their own words:

Massdrop is an online community for enthusiasts that provides people across several communities…a place to connect with one another, discuss their favorite products and activities, and buy those products together.

Described further as an “expansive community for enthusiasts with passions ranging from high fidelity sound reproduction and mechanical keyboard assembly to quilting and fountain pens,” the numbers are impressive: Massdrop’s user base has grown 7 times in the last 12 month and now reaches over a million users as each community on the site continues to expand.

The community pitch, for anyone who has used forums before, makes sense as well, with the company arguing that enthusiast groups previously gathered in antiquated online forums that lacked tools and features, whereas Massdrop claims to be proving a superior outlet for highly engaged communities by empowering them to connect in better ways, with the ability to purchase items thrown in for good measure.

“Many companies have found initial success in e-commerce, but hit a plateau where they can no longer drive growth through paid acquisition alone,” August Capital General Partner David Hornik said in a statement. “By fostering and engaging the community, rather than buying one, Massdrop has pushed through this plateau and continues to grow its user base.”

Massdrop currently covers 11 different categories of communities and is looking to expand rapidly into a number of new categories over the next year while also adding new features to the site.

Fascinating

We’ve seen over the years many eCommerce sites who launch community forums in an attempt to engage users, and forums who have tried to branch out into eCommerce style service provisions years after launching, but few services that have started with both from the beginning.

It’s a fascinating hybrid model which would require a fine balance between its two arms: on one hand it needs to get the community side right in terms of support and feature provision while not overly pushing hard on the eCommerce side so that it primarily is a forum/community first, but likewise Massdrop can’t afford to ignore the eCommerce side either because that is where they make their money; don’t push the eCommerce side enough, don’t make any money; push the eCommerce side too much, and users will leave as it will become clear that it’s primarily about selling products versus about the community of enthusiasts.

Including the new round Massdrop has raised $47.9 million to-date. The only previous investor who didn’t participate in the new round was Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The company said it would use the new round to increase its headcount and to expand into new categories.

Image credit: Massdrop/screenshot