Social commerce platform Zaarly has announced it has closed a
Series A $14.1 million funding round. The company has also added HP CEO and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to its board of directors.

The funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins and Sands Capital Ventures. Investors and VC firms including CMEA, Venture51, Crunchfund, Artists & Instigators and Marc Ecko also participated. Zaarly will use the financing to grow its product team (it’s hiring engineers and developers) and expand into new territories throughout the U.S.

Whitman helped grow eBay from a company with 30 employees to an multi-billion-dollar company that facilitates person-to-person transactions on a large scale. Zaarly is in a similar market, but rather than selling items through auctions, it is designed to help you buy and sell goods with people in your neighborhood. Using the service’s mobile apps or website, you post what you want to buy, when you want it and how much you want to pay. Others can respond to your requests by offering you that item.

“Just as consumers once left off-line marketplaces to join online marketplaces such as eBay, Craigslist and Amazon, they’re now migrating to mobile marketplaces, like Zaarly,” said Whitman. “Mobile, local marketplaces will shift how people buy and sell goods, services, and experiences. This is the next generation of eCommerce.”

Since Zaarly launched earlier this year, over $6.75 million in requests have been posted on the service. New York City, San Francisco and Kansas City each contributed over $500,000 in listings, while the service is seeing a lot of activity in cities such as Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, Washington and Seattle.

Zaarly hit $1 million in transactions in June and launched its Android app the following month, which was later updated to include a more accurate location feature (which was already available in its iPhone app) and additional sharing options. The company overhauled its website last month to add a new user experience and also launched its mobile website. However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Zaarly as it had to contend with a security issue that exposed user information in July.