Party planner has reason to celebrate

Evite.com, an online party and event planner, will announce tomorrow that it has secured $30 million in second-round financing, the company told CNET News.com.

Investors in this round include August Capital and Staenberg Venture Partners, which participated in the first round, as well as Advent International, Greylock Management, Hikari Tsushin, North Hill Ventures, Technology Crossover Ventures and others.

"The $30 million in capital will allow us to take Evite.com to the next level as we continue to develop our product's full potential and build loyalty with our users," Josh Silverman, chief executive of Evite.com, said in a statement.

The investment comes as online party planning is becoming a much-talked-about Web application. A slew of players have hit the scene recently, including SeeUthere.com, Mambo.com and eParties.

In the case of Mambo and eParties, the sites have attracted successful Web veterans. Former Netscape Netcenter executive Jennifer Bailey joined Mambo as an executive earlier this month, and eCompanies founders Jake Winebaum, formerly head of Disney's Buena Vista Internet Group, and Sky Dayton, founder of EarthLink Network, helped launch eParties in October.

The number of event planners that has sprouted during the past year may catch the attention of larger Web sites searching for services and communities to add to their offerings. Like calendaring companies such as When.com, acquired by America Online, and Jump Networks, acquired by Microsoft, the popularity of event planners could spark another "me too" buying spree for portals.

"I wouldn't dub [event planners] as the next hot acquisition target, but there's a lot of these sites, and there's bound to be consolidation and acquisition," said Anya Sacharow, an analyst at market research firm Jupiter Communications. "Any type of utilitarian services, things like scheduling or booking reservations online, are very concrete activities."

Party planning Web sites allow users to send email via their services to organize groups of people. By facilitating the creation of these email lists, event planners hope to encourage more e-commerce transactions through event planning services and products and among the users themselves.