Monster Venture Partners

Rob Monster, founder of Monster Venture Partners

Monster Venture Partners -- the Bellevue venture capital firm led by Rob Monster -- plans to announce Monday that it has acquired a controlling position in Bitwine and named former Expedia manager Ronnie Gurion as CEO.

Gurion will work from Bellevue, while the company's three person technical team will remain in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Bitwine is like eBay for advice, with consumers able to search for experts on topics as varied as nutrition, computers and medicine.

Consumers initiate online chats with the experts, who register with the site and set up profiles noting their areas of interest. A rating and review system offers additional insight on the ability of each expert, who set pricing by the minute (ranging from free to more than $2) for their online chat and phone consultations. Bitwine takes a 20 percent cut.

Monster, who has joined the board as chairman, said in an e-mail that they have acquired "a platform that will let us monetize the long-tail of experts." He also said the service will be integrated with other portfolio companies of Monster Venture Partners, including Questions.com, Careers.org and Traveler.com.

"When we agreed to acquire the company, we already knew that sites like JustAnswer.com were generating 3,000 paid consults per day with a fairly basic technical solution," said Monster. "We see similar opportunities, but on a larger scale, but segmented into use-cases and markets, and enhanced with better solutions for reassuring users that they are talking to an authentic expert with verified credentials."

Bitwine also faces competition from LivePerson, which acquired Israel-based Kasamba for about $40 million last year.

Monster Venture Partners has quickly made its mark in the Seattle venture capital community over the past year, hiring experienced partners such as Jeff Schrock and Todd Humphrey while backing more than two dozen new Internet properties.

And even with the tough economy, Monster believes focused startups can succeed. "For angel investors, this is a rather ideal time to be increasing their positions in lean startups that can weather the capital markets storm and who are building businesses with a global reach," he said.