Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire, creators of Jellyfish.com, an online shopping and social network, have raised $4.3 million in funding for Alice.com, an online market for household products. They won't give details of the business yet, other than to say it will involve selling household essentials to consumers over the Internet, ranging from diapers and toilet paper to toothpaste, batteries and garbage bags, but no food products.

"It is going to innovate and disrupt (business) in the traditional retail space dominated by Wal-Mart and Target," Wiegand said.

Products will be stored and shipped from an Indianapolis warehouse that Alice.com is outsourcing, Wiegand said. He said Indianapolis is a more efficient location than Madison for shipping products nationwide. Alice.com is still negotiating with FedEx and UPS

for the shipping contract, he said.

The business, established in June, has 15 employees, including Wiegand and McGuire, and offices at 8215 Greenway Blvd. in Middleton, about one block from Jellyfish.com.

The funding round for Alice.com was led by Kegonsa Capital Partners and DaneVest Tech Fund. "It's a pretty big round for this economy," Wiegand said. "(But) even with our track records, it was challenging."

He said the money will be used to build the Web site, hire a staff and market the business when it gets under way in spring 2009.

This is the fourth online business for Wiegand, 39, and the third for McGuire, 40. They sold Jellyfish.com to Microsoft in 2007 for $50 million and stayed to lead the company through May.

"Mark and I wanted to do another business. We were looking for a $1-billion-plus industry; this one is nearly a $300 billion industry," Wiegand said.

"We're really looking for a big one, this time," he added. "To compete with Wal-Mart is pretty audacious."

The business will have some social features and will be geared toward 18- to 34-year olds.

Meanwhile, Jellyfish has been undergoing changes as it becomes integrated into Microsoft's Live Search Cash Back program. For instance, live "Smack" sales shows, where the price of items drops as the minutes tick away, have been scaled back to once a day, five days a week.

Wiegand said he thinks the Jellyfish name will disappear. "It's sad," he said. "All the customers really liked it."