Following rumors from Silicon Alley Insider last week, Gowalla officially announced today a funding raise of $8.4 million in venture capital from Greylock Partners, Maples Investments, Shasta Ventures and others.

Gowalla is a location-based social networking application for smart phones. Similar to Foursquare, they let you share and discover new locations based on your social networks. Users earn stamps for their digital passports based on the places they’ve visited, which range from Seattle’s Space Needle to the Austin Java down the street.

The company has raised a total of $10 million since it was founded in 2007. Currently, the service is free and available on iPhone and Android-based smart phones.

Gowalla officially launched 10 weeks ago and according to the article in Austin American Statesman, “50,000 users have joined since” then and “users have created and checked in at 150,000 locations in over 8,500 cities in 100 countries.”

See our past coverage of Gowalla here.