Well gee-whilikers! I didn’t expect to be writing this so soon after our Series B round, but …

We closed a Series C round of $10 million.

Gary mentioned in his blog about the B round that this is just a way for us to measure our progress along some sort of an education path – I don’t know where exactly that puts us (high school?), but I will say that it’s really great that smart people like Jeb Miller at Jafco Ventures thought enough of us to come knocking, and then were persuasive enough to convince us and our existing investors to top off the tank.

So we did.  It’s quite full.  But it won’t change the way we operate our business.  We like being a startup, acting with urgency and purpose, running lean, ensuring we control our own destiny, being entrepreneurs.  That’s fun stuff.  What we can promise you is that these proceeds, all these proceeds, will go to delivering the best possible experience to you, across all our services.  And it will help us bring out a few things we’ve been working on even sooner – really cool, so-far secret stuff, so stay tuned!

So, thanks to Jeb and the whole Jafco team (and to all our existing investors who keep stepping up to invest more in us).  Thanks to our business partners from all corners of the gift card, retail and payment industries for supporting us.  And thanks to you, our customers, for making us the web’s largest and best place to get the most possible value from gift cards.  We at PJ like you all a real lot!

Jafco Ventures Leads Investment in Gift Card Exchange;

Company on Track to Transact in More than $10 Million in Gift Card Value in 2010

SAN JOSE, Calif. — November 18, 2010 – Plastic Jungle, the web’s largest secured gift card exchange, today announced that it has closed on $10 million in Series C financing. Jafco Ventures is leading the third round of investment, along with returning investors Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Bay Partners, and First Round Capital. Plastic Jungle will use the funding to continue its work to unlock the estimated $30 billion in unredeemed gift cards trapped in the economy for the benefit of consumers and retailers alike.

“We’ve built tremendous trust with our customers by operating the most efficient marketplace for unredeemed gift cards, and developing unparalleled payment applications allowing consumers to buy, sell, and exchange gift cards,” said CEO of Plastic Jungle Bruce Bower. “We continue to prove that the Plastic Jungle team is second to none when it comes to understanding the gift card market.”

With a team comprised of former eBay, PayPal, Google, First Data and Blackhawk executives, Plastic Jungle expects to transact more than $10 million in gift card value in 2010, making it the largest marketplace to buy, sell and donate unredeemed gift cards.

Bruce added, “While we weren’t actively seeking to raise additional capital, we seized on the opportunity to solidify our market leadership, accelerate our growth and continue innovating patent-pending solutions aimed at benefiting the aligned interests of our merchant partners and our consumers.”

Through the Plastic Jungle marketplace and its proprietary payments applications, users can sell unredeemed gift cards for up to 92% of the verified gift card balance or buy gift cards to their favorite stores at up to 30% off, allowing consumers to get extra mileage out of every purchase and become all-around savvier shoppers. Plastic Jungle also connects merchants with their best customers, moving idle gift card balances into the hands of their most motivated consumers. Plastic Jungle’s payment applications also allow consumers to convert unredeemed gift cards into purchasing power at e-commerce, social gaming, and other online merchants.

In conjunction with the new funding, Jeb Miller, General Partner of Jafco Ventures, will join the Plastic Jungle Board of Directors.

“Plastic Jungle is doing incredible things to revolutionize the gift card and alternative payments industries, and we look forward to applying the full resources of the Jafco platform to help the company further accelerate its growth,” said Jeb Miller. “They have already established themselves as the clear winner in this emerging space, continuing to develop new and innovative gift card applications, and we believe the combination of their vision and expertise will define the field far into the future.”

“This Series C financing marks another step in Plastic Jungle’s significant growth and our efforts to bring liquidity to the unredeemed gift card economy,” said Tod Francis, Managing Director of Shasta Ventures. “Not only has Plastic Jungle delivered on the vision they laid out when we first invested in the company, but they’re constantly innovating solutions to create a gift card marketplace with vastly greater flexibility and efficiency. We’re very much looking forward to working with Jeb and Jafco to help Plastic Jungle reach the next level.”

Read the press release on Marketwire:  Plastic Jungle Closes on $10 Million in Financing to Accelerate Growth

About Plastic Jungle

Plastic Jungle (www.plasticjungle.com) is the web’s largest secured gift card exchange, giving consumers the choice and flexibility to convert their gift cards into other forms of spending power — including cash, online balances to use for purchases at the millions of merchants that accept PayPal, Facebook Credits, and more — and to stretch their shopping dollars at their favorite merchants.  Plastic Jungle’s patent-pending marketplace and payment applications aim to safely unlock the estimated $30 billion in unredeemed gift cards trapped in the economy for the benefit of consumers and merchants alike. Based in San Jose, California, the company is privately held, with venture backing from Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures, First Round Capital, Bay Partners, Harrison Metal and Western Technology Investment.