Spindle Releases V 2.0... Could They Be An Acquisition Target?
Thursday Mar 7, 2013 by Keith Cline - Founder, VentureFizz
Click here to discuss or vote up on Hacker News
Boston based Spindle announced today the release of version 2.0 of their iPhone app with some exciting new features and expanded coverage in three more new cities.
Spindle is ultimately making social content more discoverable through their mobile app, where you can find out interesting updates and useful information from local businesses and organizations.
One of the new, powerful features in their app is the Spindle Search function. If you are in the Seaport District and you are looking for a coffee spot, you can now search for information either by “Places” (coffee shops) or by “Updates” (social content). You can set an Alert on any search criteria, so that you can get notified about any relevant updates. For example, I set up an alert for “live music,” so I don’t miss out on any shows.
The new maps interface is another slick feature. You can discover what is going on by their interactive maps and tap on an icon to get further information about the local business. You can toggle between the interactive maps and the pre-existing social feed feature to keep current with what's going on nearby.
Spindle’s app previously covered Boston, San Francisco & NYC, but today they are expanding coverage into Chicago, Seattle, and Austin… just in time for SXSW.
Spindle was founded in 2010 by Pat Kinsel, Alex Lambert, and Simon Yun, all alum from Microsoft’s NERD center. We last covered Spindle in November as they pushed their app out of preview. It will be interesting to see what they will tackle next. Will they allow consumers to add reviews of local businesses like Yelp?
In my opinion, Spindle is a company to watch, as they are working on very hard to solve and current problems. They have one of the deepest technical founding teams in Boston and based on their experience in social discovery and search, I think Spindle is an attractive acquisition target. Twitter has been acquiring companies in town… and now Facebook is shopping for office space in the area. Google, Microsoft Bing? I have no data to support my opinion, just a hunch.
Spindle has raised over $3M in funding. Their investors include Polaris Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, Greylock Partners, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, Broad Beach Ventures, Project 11, Ray Ozzie, and Raman Narayanan.
| Categories: |