Qype is a user-generated local reviews site covering restaurants, bars, gyms, childcare and other venues. Launched in March 2006, it positions itself as the largest user-generated local review site in Europe, ahead of Yelp. Qype reports a database of 600,000 businesses across 158,000 European towns and cities and 17 million unique visitors per month. The company has pushed into mobile with apps first on iPhone (January 2009), followed by Android and BlackBerry, and its app has been downloaded almost a million times. Qype says the newly raised funds will be used to accelerate its mobile business and distribution. The company recently secured a new €6.5 million financing to support that mobile push. Qype operates localized, language-specific sites for user reviews of local businesses and treats each locale as its own site. The service has established strong presence across Europe, notably in England, France, Spain and Germany, where it was originally founded. Qype reports 6.3 million monthly unique visitors across the UK, France, Spain and Germany, with around half its traffic coming from Germany. The company recently launched a localized version for Brazil. Qype plans to release a geo-location-enabled iPhone application in mid-December to surface nearby restaurants and shops and view recommendations. It has made key talent acquisitions earlier in the year and has raised €13M to date, including an €8M round closed in September. QYPE is an online local search and recommendation service based in Hamburg, Germany, that combines user-generated reviews with social networking features. Founded in April 2006 by Stephan Uhrenbacher (who established travelchannel.de), the site already covers over 1,000 German cities. The product uses tags, microformats (hreview) and a recommendation search engine to surface trusted local advice. QYPE secured a multi-million euro Series A investment primarily from Advent Venture Partners and Partech International. The funding is intended to accelerate community building and rapidly roll the service out across Europe, specifically the UK and France. The article also notes the company emphasizes frugality in its operations as highlighted on the founder's blog.

Total raised

$19M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Nov 2010