Toronto’s Hubba Hints at Seed Round with Facebook Connection

Toronto’s Hubba had been flying under the radar since its launch until it landed on our list of finalists for Best New Startup of 2012 along with Cinegram and Frank & Oak.

Although they didn’t win, 2013 ended up being a big year for the understated startup as they were named to the Canadian Innovation Exhange’s 20 Hottest Innovative Companies list.

Hubba provides a data sharing platform that gives brands, retailers, and agencies the power to manage and share their consumer-ready product information. Hubba recognizes that consumers want and expect to know more about products than ever before, which the startup enables through its comprehensive platform.

Word on the street is that Hubba has raised a significant seed round from some interesting investors. And their CrunchBase profile seems to confirm it. Last week it was updated to include a “$2.1 million in seed funding” from investors including The Social+Capital Partnership, Brightspark Ventures, Jordan Banks, Elmer Sotto, and Jonathan Ehrlich.

Facebook fans will recognize some of those names.

The Social+Capital Partnership was founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, a long-tenured member of Facebook’s senior executive team. Banks is the Managing Director of Facebook Canada and was recently appointed to lead its Global Vertical Strategy team. Sotto was previously the Head of Growth for Facebook Canada and now resides in Singapore and heads up International Growth and Mobile. Ehrlich was formerly the Director of Marketing at Facebook and is now a partner at Foundation Capital.

Techvibes reached out to Hubba for confirmation and comment. CEO Ben Zifkin isn’t ready to publicly comment but told us that Hubba is “in a good spot; 2014 should be a huge year for us.”

Stay tuned and be sure to ‘like’ Hubba on Facebook for updates.