The same team that brought Atlanta free Wi-Fi is using their recent angel funding round to pivot and launch a new service today called Scoutmob. Scoutmob is jumping head-first into the hot local online advertising space. The most noteworthy company in the space, Groupon, recently raised $30M with a $280M valuation. The SkyBlox team partnered with another ATDC company, Zuercher Technologies, to develop a comprehensive solution consisting of a web, email & iPhone application.
“Wi-Fi was a decent business for us, but the more we dove into the local online advertising space, the more we realized that there were much more powerful and scaleable business models,” says David Payne, Founder of Scoutmob.
What makes Scoutmob different is that it is not typical group buying. Scoutmob is more like Woot for local businesses, but all on your mobile device. Every day Scoutmob sends an email to 25,000 Atlanta residents. The email is focused on one daily deal. Scoutmob users have 24 hours to claim a deal either through SMS or the Scoutmob iPhone application. Scoutmob is only paid by the merchant once customers claim the deal. So Scoutmob is risk-free for local businesses because no money is paid unless Scoutmob can drive business in a measurable way. Interesting model.
Scoutmob plans to raise additional funds soon for expansion and additional product development.