(TechCrunch) January 13, 2011 – What do you get when you mix Groupon’s business model, a country with 200 million souls, and an ex-Facebook exec? A company that Benchmark Capital will invest in, that’s what.

Brazil’s Peixe Urbano, a Groupon-type startup founded by the former Brazilian country manager for Facebook Julio Vasconcellos, launched in mid 2010. By August they had 1 million registered users. Today they have over 5 million.

They also are announcing that they’ve raised a first round of funding, from Benchmark Capital and Brazil’s Monashees Capital. Matt Cohler from Benchmark and Eric Acher from Monashees are taking board seats. They are not disclosing the size of the round.

The company has 300 employees today and will use the proceeds for hiring further. They are adding sales, engineering and exec headcount in Brazil and abroad.

For now the company operates only in Brazil, and is still adding more cities in that country. Groupon also has a presence in Brazil.

By Michael Arrington

For the complete article, including the press release in Portuguese, click here.