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Breaking up is hard to do, but Divorce 360 has scored $2.5 million from angel investors and Austin Ventures to make it just a little easier. The social network aims to provide information, advice and above all--community--for couples on the rocks.

After the site launched earlier this week, I spoke with Thomas Ball, a venture partner at AV, about how the deal came together. Divorce360 is headed by former Bankrate Inc. COO Cotter Cunningham, who was introduced to the venture firm by Elizabeth DeMarse, former CEO of Bankrate. DeMarse is now the chief executive of AV portfolio company CreditCards.com Inc. (which recently postponed its initial public offering).

As for why Ball invested, he pointed out that much like Bankrate, which gives users information about mortgage and other lending rates, the site focuses on a major life event that many people experience. While Ball admits that may be a grim target for a portal, he notes that there's a lot of financial and time pressure surrounding a divorce, just as their is with a wedding.

Those qualities are just what Ball looks for when he evaluates social networking sites. Aside from having a large number of users, good management and a big market, he says, "To me it's things that have a high level of engagement, which have some kind of emotional or financial attachment to it. In the case of Divorce360 there's both emotional and financial attachments."

Ball adds that while AV sees a ton of social networking deals, it doesn't do a lot of them. Another AV-backed social network, Spiceworks Inc., caters to information technology professionals. Spiceworks, which has 200,000 members, provides ad-supported, free IT management software, along with a user community.

It could well be that AV's idea of social networks, while less joyful, may turn it out to be more profitable. -Stacey Higginbotham

See Nov. 20 story from Tech Confidential

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