One Kings Lane, a flash sales website for home decor, has raised $40 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global management.  Compared to other online-shopping websites, it gives more weight to discovery than targeted marketing.  The financial backing harbingers the intensification of online-shopping to the ready transition of its traditional counterpart.

The startup has been standing strong for two years now, but is unprofitable so far.  The new funding raises its value to $440 million and is geared towards bringing in $100 million in revenue for the year.  One Kings Lane does marketing through email and notifications to its 2 million subscribers.  They market designer furniture and house paraphernalia with discounts that last only 72 hours, a format quite similar to popular fashion flash sales sites like Gilt and Rue La La.  The trend is growing amongst the larger web players looking to cash in on this retail trend, with Amazon recently launching its Gilt competitor MYHABIT.

On the other side of the retail revolution, Google is said to have acquired a German copy of Groupon, DailyDeal.de, serving customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  The company has raised over $10 million in funding so far from investors Mangrove Capital Partners and Adinvest, as well as angel investor Stefan Glanzer.  Google has yet to confirm the move, and DailyDeal has yet to disclose the terms of the buyout. Here’s DailyDeal’s announcement in full:

“When DailyDeal was founded in Berlin back in December 2009, there was just two of us. Since then, we have seen tremendous growth, as people throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland have used DailyDeal to find local deals on their favorite restaurants, travel destinations, entertainment venues and retail outlets.

Our team has grown too, and with it, our vision for DailyDeal. We see great opportunity to better connect businesses with consumers on a much larger scale, and we have found a team that shares our vision.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that we’ve been acquired by Google! What began as a two-person startup less than two years ago has transformed into a trusted platform to connect businesses with consumers. By combining our expertise with the Offers team at Google, we hope to expand our efforts to provide even greater deals to consumers.

The DailyDeal team”

Sure, online daily deals have gained a lot of traction.  The trend has pulled in millions of dollars in capital, spawning hundreds of clones in hopes of mimicking the success of Groupon, Gilt and Living Social.  However, the real battle is just beginning as the shaft is separated from the wheat: so far 170 in 530 companies have survived, says daily-deal-site aggregator Yipit.  Even Facebook, who has recently showed interest in daily deals, withdraw their partnership with the service.