Location based social network IRL Connect gets seed capital
Written on April 10, 2008 – 12:10 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Everything about Dutch start-up IRL Connect revolves around one question: Where are you? It’s a location based social network that is expected to go into private beta in June. Co-founder and CEO Frank Schuil mailed me today that IRL got seed funding from IntoBeta and private investment company Van de Wijgerd. Both companies took a share in IRL and will advice Schuil and his team on how to develop the service. Schuil: “The investment of IntoBeta BV and Van de Wijgerd BV enables us to move forward. Both parties have extended experience and know what it takes to build a solid web application and raise venture capital. This means a short and long term advantage.”
Frank Schuil signs the contract
Joost van de Wijgerd about the investment in IRL: “I’m convinced that Location Based Social Networking, Social Network Aggregation and developments such as OpenSocial are the big thing for 2008 and 2009. IRLConnect combines these items in a slick visual app with a cool interaction model.”
The ambitions of IRL sound good: by connecting MySpace, Facebook and other social networks with Google Maps, IRL wants to make your friends from social networks visible on a map. So IRL Connect makes a link between your online and off line life. I do think that they may better hurry, since similar initiatives are popping up. For example, Yahoo is developing FireEagle. A service that is also all about letting know where you are. It’s the new hype, obviously, and I hope for IRL Connect that they find a way to stand out from the crowd.
I hope you like that post!
Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
frank schuil, intobeta, irl connect, seed funding, Social Network Aggregation, Start-ups, van de wijgerd
Email
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
Twitter
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
