Founded in late 2012 and based in Stockholm, Instabridge began as a way to share home Wi‑Fi with Facebook friends and has since pivoted to a broader crowdsourced Wi‑Fi sharing community and mobile app. The app lets users share details of any Wi‑Fi hotspot and access hotspots shared by others, and the company also maintains a list of known public venues with free Wi‑Fi such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. Instabridge has built a database of roughly 2 million Wi‑Fi spots and reports 2.3 million monthly active users, growing at about 50,000 new users per day. The company has found particular popularity in Brazil and Mexico and targets developing markets where cellular data is expensive. Instabridge says it will use new funding to expand in Asia, starting with India, including building out a team there. The company frames this expansion as part of a mission to increase internet access in developing countries where connectivity can reduce income inequality. Instabridge is a mobile app and crowdsourced Wi‑Fi sharing community that lets users share hotspot credentials and access hotspots contributed by others. Originally founded in late 2012 to enable sharing home Wi‑Fi with Facebook friends, it pivoted to a broader crowdsourced hotspot database including public venues such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. The company claims two million users and says it has recruited 100,000 members to its Wi‑Fi sharing community, with fastest growth in emerging markets including Mexico, Brazil, and India. Instabridge is still pre-revenue; the CEO says the eventual business model will be based on recommending products and services once users come online. Since the prior coverage the Stockholm team has grown from 5 to 13 people and the company has established a four-person team in Brazil, hiring Yelp’s former Nordic community lead to grow that market. The new funding will be used to invest in growth and accelerate rollout of the app into additional markets. Instabridge is a Stockholm-based mobile app and crowdsourced Wi‑Fi sharing community that helps users locate and manage public and shared Wi‑Fi hotspots. The iOS and Android app uses a crowdsourced database of hotspots and comes pre-loaded with venues offering free Wi‑Fi such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. Originally founded in late 2012 to let users share home Wi‑Fi with Facebook friends, the company pivoted to a broader Wi‑Fi management and sharing service. Instabridge positions itself as a replacement for the phone’s native Wi‑Fi manager, and the team is developing software to act as a “SIM‑card for Wi‑Fi” that makes intelligent connect/disconnect decisions. The app is free to use and the company has no immediate plans to monetise, but intends to build out the network first and may monetise later via a WhatsApp‑style model, ads, or a premium service. The startup has seen traction in developing markets where users prefer Wi‑Fi over cellular data. Instabridge is an Android app that aims to be a complete replacement for the phone’s Wi‑Fi manager by giving users access to a crowdsourced database of Wi‑Fi hotspots. The app lets users share hotspot details with the community, includes a pre-loaded database of venues with free Wi‑Fi (e.g., McDonald’s, Starbucks), and can show hotspots on a map or via a compass. It offers features such as cloud backup and sync of saved Wi‑Fi networks across devices and flags whether networks are open or require login/payment. The company originally launched in late 2012 as a way to share home Wi‑Fi on Facebook and later pivoted to a broader Wi‑Fi sharing community. Instabridge is currently pre-revenue and says users add over 1,000 networks per day with roughly 20,000 connections made daily. The app is finding most take-up in emerging markets (Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, India) as well as Spain, the Netherlands, Canada and the U.S., and the team plans an iPhone version shortly.

Total raised

$8M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Apr 2018