Social travel site Gogobot Inc. has raised $15 million, a year after it was founded. Redpoint Ventures led the round, joined by Battery Ventures and Michael Arrington's CrunchFund. The company will use the proceeds to expand its global marketing, partnerships, and outreach.
Earlier this year, Redpoint Ventures led a $24 million financing round in Israeli start-up Qwilt Ltd., as well as in Adap.tv, and other companies. It has chalked up several exits in Israel, including the sale of FraudScience Ltd. to PayPal Inc.
San Francisco-based Gogobot has raised $19 million to date. Investors include Google chairman Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, Israeli angel investor Oren Zeev, and MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe.
Gogobot allows users to harness the power of their social networks to exchange trusted travel advice and share trip plans and rich visual travel memories. The company says that, since its launch in November 2010, users have shared more than two million places with their friends and that its user base has grown ten-fold. The company's app is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It says that the app is a top 10 travel app in 31 countries.
Gogobot CEO Travis Katz said, "Travel is all about discovering new experiences and sharing them with your friends and family. With this new funding, Gogobot aims to continue to grow and pave the way for a new era of travel - harnessing social media to provide users with trusted, insightful, and enriching reviews at the tip of your finger."
Gogobot's application was developed by Israelis: CTO Ori Zaltzman, senior software engineer Elad Ossadon, and Yossi Tagori. Zaltzman told "Globes" that Gogobot was considering opening a branch in Israel and hire Israeli developers and engineers.
In August, Gogobot was picked as one of the top 50 apps by "Time" magazine.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 6, 2011
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