• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, October 29, 2013

Nextdoor, the San Francisco-based social network for neighbors, has raised $60 million led by John Doerr and Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Lee Fixel of Tiger Global Management.
 
All told, Nextdoor has now raised more than $100 million over the past 18 months.

Unlike your average social network, Nextdoor doesn’t encourage users to connect with the entire world. Rather, networks are only open to other users living in particular neighborhoods -- or nearby neighborhoods -- which is confirmed using their home addresses.
 
Because of users’ existing geographic relationship, Nextdoor becomes a natural platform for all manner of neighborhood business, from community events and classifieds listings to local crime and parking issues.
 
Launched nationally about two years ago, Nextdoor now claims a presence in roughly 22,500 neighborhoods, which would represent a growth rate of 400% year-over-year.
 
Nextdoor’s model is so useful that municipalities are using the network to organize citizen activity. This summer, in fact, New York City announced plans to use Nextdoor to “push” notices into -- and pull information from -- roughly 1,800 individual neighborhoods. Ultimately, the social network is expected to be fully integrated into the city’s government departments, including police, fire, utilities and other agencies.
 
“Nextdoor … is becoming an essential utility for communities that have adopted the service,” KPCB’s Mary Meeker stated.
 
According to a company spokesperson, Nextdoor’s greatest barrier to growth is rather unique. “The biggest challenge we face is that people don’t know their neighbors,” she said. “People have become accustomed to long commutes, to both parents working outside the home, and with so many things competing for their attention in what free time they do have, they’re much more insular than they were in days past.”
 
“The good news is that there is a longing to reconnect and bring back the sense of community that many of us knew when we were growing up,” the spokeswoman added. “The neighborhood was the original social network, and we’ve seen that neighbors really do desire to connect to build stronger and safer places to call home.”