The company plans to use roughly half of the investment to help push the newspaper-dominated coupon market into digital deals as well as expand the coupon industry. The company intents to hire 100 new employees before the end of 2011, which will grow its total workforce by more than a third.

Also, $100 million of the funds will go to early investors and employees in a move that’s similar to what online deal saving startup Groupon has done.

The decline of print publications has forced the 13-year-old company to shift its strategy from primarily distributing coupons through newspapers to an online distribution model.

The new investment is rumored to boost Coupons.com’s valuation to $1 billion, which would make it the third company speculated to reach that valuation amount — behind social bed and breakfast startup Airbnb and mobile payments startup Square.

Tags: coupons, Investment

Companies: Coupons.com

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