Lockerz CEO Kathy Savitt

Some of the biggest names in venture capital are putting their faith in Lockerz, a Seattle upstart that came on the scene in a big way in 2011.

The company, which is building a social networking service where teenagers and twenty somethings earn points for sharing content or watching videos, landed a massive $36 million venture capital round from venerable Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, former Microsoft CFO Greg Maffei, DAG Ventures and Live Nation. It also bought three companies in 2011, purchasing online video startup Vodpod, social sharing service AddToAny and Twitter photo service Plixi.

Obviously, it’s been a busy year for CEO Kathy Savitt, a former Amazon.com and PR executive who moved Lockerz to Seattle from Pittsburgh two years ago. Trying to build a destination for the mercurial tastes of teenagers and twenty somethings — a group Lockerz classifies as “Generation Z” — is no easy task.

But Lockerz believes it has the secret sauce, offering rewards for the activities that youngsters perform online.

“We want to be that first place they go to actually be rewarded for their engagement for the stuff they love to do,” Savitt told GeekWire earlier this year.

Lockerz is doing a good job of creating that engagement. Earlier this year, the company said that it was attracting about 45 million unique visitors each month, with those visitors spending on average seven minutes on the site per session.

The company is looking to increase that engagement, launching its own comedy Web series and rolling out a new mobile application where members of the site can earn points.

Newsmakers at the GeekWire Gala

We’ll be recognizing more than 20 Newsmakers of 2011 during the GeekWire Gala, Dec. 8 at the Great Hall at Seattle’s Union Station. We’ll introduce a new Newsmaker every weekday leading up to the big event.

The night is also a celebration of “Geeks who Give Back,” recognized in a special GeekWire 2012 Calendar that will be given to attendees, with a share of sponsorship proceeds going to the Child’s Play charity.

Tickets are available here for the event.

Thanks to our sponsors Zillow, Bing, Filter, Facebook and Barokas PR for helping to make this special evening possible.

Contact Rebecca Lovell, rebecca@geekwire.com, for sponsorship opportunities.

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