TeachStreet is unveiling a free online directory to help people find more than 25,000 teachers, coaches and other instructors in the Seattle area. It also is formally announcing $2.25 million, a venture round that was previously reported last month.

You can find nearly any type of instructor in TeachStreet's local directory. There are currently 11 classes for beer making, eight for break dancing and -- maybe not a surprise to Seattleites -- 984 for yoga. The classes can be parsed by neighborhood, age range or other factors.

Former Amazon.com and JibJab employee Dave Schappell founded TeachStreet last year after he became frustrated trying to find a motorcycle class in Seattle. The 39-year-old, who had been tracking the success of Yelp's online directories for local restaurants, said there had to be a better way to find instructors.

"It is surprising how hard it is still to find local classes or find local teachers and figure out which of the four of the classes are the better ones to take," said Schappell, adding that many instructors still rely on coffee shop bulletin boards and other tactics to promote themselves.

Creating a database of thousands of teachers, coaches and instructors in a market like Seattle is not easy. TeachStreet currently has more than half a dozen contractors who manually collect names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails, pricing data and other information from Google, CraigsList, school catalogs and other Web sites. (Schappell declined to provide the exact number of data collectors, citing competitive reasons. He would only say it was more than half a dozen and less than 500.)

The manual data collection is a potential roadblock and a possible differentiator, one of the reasons why TeachStreet is starting with a test in Seattle. It has already started collecting data on a second city, though Schappell declined to disclose it.

For a city the size of Seattle, Portland or Phoenix, Schappell estimated that it would cost as little as $15,000 to get a solid directory. As the site gains brand recognition, Schappell is hopeful that teachers will claim their individual profile pages -- adding biographical information and other pertinent content. In that regard, the site is similar to Seattle-based Avvo, which is trying to do something similar with its online lawyer directory. (Note, TeachStreet does not start with a ranking, though community members will be able to rate and comment on the performance of individual instructors.)

TeachStreet plans to make money through online advertising, with the ability for instructors to pay for sponsored links much as small business operators do on Google. Eventually it also plans to roll out premium services for as little as $5 per month, offering calendars or payment processing to instructors.

Competition exists -- including TakeLessons.com -- but Schappell sees TeachStreet as more of a combination of popular online services.

"We look at it as a little bit of a Yelp, a little bit of a Meetup and a little bit of a Craigslist, essentialy trying to address the needs of individual teachers and trainers and schools," he said.

Investors in the eight-person Seattle company include Madrona Venture Group, Bezos Expeditions, former Expedia Chief Executive Erik Blachford, Hulu.com Chief Executive Jason Kilar, former RealNetworks executive Dave Richards and others. As a result of the investment, Madrona's Scott Jacobson and Silicon Valley investor Dave McClure have joined the board.