"As we move toward a world where every industry is becoming social, major retailers are starting to see the value of social commerce. If they don't, they risk becoming irrelevant."

Following Payvment's initial year of explosive, unparalleled growth, the new funding will position the company for its next phase of development. In its first year, Payvment has signed up more than 40,000 global retailers to use its award-winning social commerce platform, recognized by eCommerce Awards for Excellence 2010 with the eCommerce Site Innovation Award. Payvment currently offers more than 750,000 searchable products and is adding hundreds of retail storefronts and thousands of products to Facebook per day.

Christian Taylor, founder and chief executive officer of Payvment, said, "This round of funding further solidifies Payvment's position as the leading social commerce platform on Facebook."

Over the next few months, Payvment will be hiring top talent in engineering, online community support, marketing, product integration, retail coordination and other areas. To accommodate the increase in headcount, the company will be cutting the ribbon on a new headquarters in Palo Alto, CA in Q1 of next year.

Vispi Daver, partner, Sierra Ventures, said, "Social commerce is the next big growth area and retailers are asking, ‘How can we monetize our social media presence?' Payvment has already answered that question and has defined the social commerce space. We are excited to invest in what promises to be one of the most important developments of the social web."

Jonathan Ebinger, General Partner at BlueRun Ventures added, "We couldn't be more pleased with Payvment and its skyrocketing success since our initial investment. Now that the technology has evolved to enable large retailers to import their inventories, the sky's the limit."

Payvment provides, free of charge, the only turnkey solution for retailers to create their own storefronts where Facebook's 500 million users can discover products and shop without ever leaving Facebook. Payvment also helps retailers incentivize Facebook users to become "Fans" of their brands by offering discounts. Data show that Facebook Fans are more valuable to retailers than non-Fans. According to research by Syncapse, Facebook Fans are 41 percent more likely to recommend a consumer product and 28 percent more likely to continue using it.

Taylor added, "As we move toward a world where every industry is becoming social, major retailers are starting to see the value of social commerce. If they don't, they risk becoming irrelevant."