Location-based photo and video discovery platform Tapastreet [1] , which first unveiled its wares at our recent TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, has announced that it’s closed a $500,000 seed round. The funding comes from Kernel Capital through the Bank of Ireland Seed and Early Stage Equity Fund, and Enterprise Ireland.
Founded in 2012 by ex-Intel engineer Joe Mitchell and ex-Googler Dave Johnson, the Irish startup offers an Android and iOS app that aggregates publicly available photos and videos from various social media, based on location. The idea is that by getting a visual overview of what people are talking about/sharing, users can discover what’s going on around them, while also cutting through the noise, says co-founder and COO Johnson.
“People want real-time information about the places and things that matter to them,†he says. “Social Networks are a great source of real-time information, but are swamped by noise. By consolidating location-based photographs and videos from a range of social networks into a single easy-to-use app Tapastreet cuts through the noise and enables users to see and share what is currently happening at any location worldwide, in real-time.â€
News and photo aggregating services, such as Storyful, might be considered potential competitors, though these tend to manually consolidate stories and images into a single curated feed, says Johnson, whereas Tapastreet “provides a user with direct, raw and unfiltered access to real-time images and videos that would never otherwise be seenâ€. A more direct competitor is Banjo, which offers a social media aggregation service. In contrast, however, Tapastreet focuses solely on images and videos to “reduce the level of noise and provide a more relevant, focused user experienceâ€.
Interestingly, Tapastreet says it has also developed a joint research project with Trinity College Dublin and The Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA) under the EU’s Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways, Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The product of that research will be fed directly back into the Tapastreet platform.
There’s no word yet on how the startup plans to monetize the free app. All Johnson will say is that the newly announced seed funding will allow Tapastreet to “focus on building out a strong user base while enhancing the technical strengths of the productâ€.
In other words, scale first and flick the monetization switch later.
Tapastreet connects people through places and pictures. Tapastreet provides real-time location-based photo and video discovery. Through a mobile application, a user searches by location or subject and publicly-accessible results from a wide range of social networks are displayed as images or playable videos on a map. Photos and videos can then be shared across a range of other Social Networks. Tapastreet is available now for free on Android, iPhone and iPad.
Kernel Capital are one of Ireland’s largest and most active venture capital funds. Established in 2002 the firm has an excellent portfolio of investee companies across, technology, life science and general industry. With investment funds of €110m we target opportunities in the €2m to €10m range at enterprise valuations of €5m to €50m+. All sectors and all stages of a company’s development considered. Property investments are excluded. Investments larger than €10m are syndicated with others and when we deem...
Enterprise Ireland is the government agency responsible for the development and promotion of the indigenous business sector. Their mission is to accelerate the development of world-class Irish companies to achieve strong positions in global markets resulting in increased national and regional prosperity. Through their extensive network of Irish and international offices, Enterprise Ireland works with their clients to assist them to compete and to grow. Their key focus, for Irish companies is covered under the following five areas...
Links
- ^ Tapastreet (tapastreet.com)
- ^ â†' Learn more (www.crunchbase.com)
- ^ â†' Learn more (www.crunchbase.com)
- ^ â†' Learn more (www.crunchbase.com)
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