Vurb is a San Francisco-based platform led by CEO and founder Bobby Lo that connects apps like Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Foursquare and Tastemade to surface people, places and things. Users can search for Places, Movies, TV, Music, Videos or Events from the home screen and receive information presented as cards. Cards include actionable elements to make reservations, buy movie tickets or book rides. The product centers on aggregating third‑party app content into actionable cards for discovery and transactions. Financially, Vurb raised approximately $2m in additional funding in the reported round, bringing total funding to over $10m. Prior to this, the company raised $8m in a Series A from Redpoint Ventures in August 2014. Other investors mentioned in articles include Tencent, Vivi Nevo, Marc Benioff, Max Levchin and Drew Houston. Vurb builds a mobile search portal that pulls information from partnered apps like Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes and deep-links into services such as Uber and Google Maps. Its UI presents rich, contextual cards that users can save into shareable “decks,” follow creators, and send to friends who can like or comment. At launch the iOS app opened to the US, Canada, and the UK; an Android app is in development. Vurb initially supports Places, Movies, TV, Video, and Music verticals and plans to add Events and Shopping. The company envisions monetization via sponsored placements and suggesting app installs for tasks. Vurb won the TechCrunch Disrupt NY Startup Battlefield and has been testing users from a waitlist while refining mobile-first search behavior. Its product focus is on uniting fragmented app functionality into a centralized, contextual hub for planning and sharing. Vurb is a mobile search engine that replaces link lists with content-rich cards compiled from factual sources and third-party apps (e.g., Yelp, Foursquare, OpenTable, YouTube, Spotify, IMDb, Netflix, Amazon, AngelList, Crunchbase). The product aggregates utility from top single-purpose apps so users can make decisions and act without switching apps or typing additional queries. Vurb is currently focused on places, movies, and media and is rolling out a private beta to a large waitlist. The company offers saving and sharing of individual cards or stacks for later reference and collaborative decision-making. Vurb plans to expand into more verticals (including travel and shopping), build an Android version, grow its team, continue R&D, and upgrade its office. The team has seven employees and recently completed new funding that expands its financial runway, bringing total funding to over $10 million. Vurb is a contextual content engine that aggregates and links relevant information from services such as Yelp, LinkedIn, Google Maps and Amazon to present cross-referenced context. The company operates in stealth and aims to organize the services people use on the web in an intelligent way. Vurb is launching an invite-only beta and is offering priority access and reserved usernames to the first 500 sign-ups. The startup plans to use its newly raised capital to double its team size. Financially, Vurb has raised more than $1.5 million in seed funding to support product development and hiring.

Total raised

$22M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Aug 2015