DietTV.com, a social net aimed at those trying to lose weight, has raised $2 million from MentorTech Ventures. The funding also includes angel funding secured last summer, as well as personal investment from DietTV.com’’s founder and CEO Ken Seiff, who previously headed the e-commerce fashion site Bluefly.com. The concept of starting a media company devoted to weight loss began about two years ago, when a former high school classmate of Seiff’s proposed building a cable TV channel focusing on dieting. After a year of research, looking at the potential for attracting advertisers, actual dieters and investment, Seiff told me in a conversation that he realized “the far bigger opportunity lay in building an online community for people looking to lose weight.”

So while there is no “TV” connection, the site does have video, with subjects offering tips on developing motivational skills and other health-related information. “Unlike a lot of social networking sites, which mainly face inward, DietTV’s profiles face outward, with members offering something apart from themselves to help someone else,” Seiff said, speaking about the competitive landscape. “You have 200 million Americans who are overweight or obese. And there’s thousands of solutions out there, but they’re mostly one-size fits all. With an online social net, you can tailor the information to fit the individual, which is why this kind of subject works better in this platform.”