• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, February 2, 2011

Venture capitalists have been pouring money into social media startups, and they show no signs of stopping: this week brought news that Path, a new social network which focuses on real relationships, has raised $8.65 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures. As part of the deal, Kleiner and Index are both taking seats on Path's board of directors. Back in November Path raised $2.5 million from backers including Index, First Round Capital, and Founders Fund.

As noted in a previous column, Path describes itself as a mobile-based "personal network" to distinguish itself from indiscriminate, impersonal counterparts like Facebook. Thus Path limits you to just 50 friends, compared to Facebook's upper limit of 5,000. But Path isn't intended to compete with sites like Facebook; rather, it's supposed to "ride along with them," according to Dave Morin, a former Facebook exec, who co-founded the site with Shawn Fanning and Dustin Mierau of Napster fame (Mierau is also joining the board of directors).

Path has a strong location-based component, and there's also a big content-sharing angle. So far Path execs say users have shared over two million photos and videos via iPhone and iPod Touch (it's currently limited to Apple devices, but an Android app is coming soon).

The success of Path seems to reflect a growing realization that many social network relationships are superficial or marginal (fake, if you want to be rude about it). This may also be the driving force behind Facebook's new "Cliques" feature, which allows you to sort your friends into different categories, based on shared interests, context, and I imagine degree of acquaintance. By limiting the network to people you actually know, Path also hopes users will feel more confident about sharing their whereabouts.

Path is clearly based on an engaging concept, and the figures for content sharing suggest that it is gaining traction. It will be interesting to see what kind of business model it introduces over the next year; so far, there's no word on how the site will make money, but location-based advertising will presumably play a significant role.