Scoutmob today announced a $1.5 million round of venture capital funding from East Coast based New Atlantic Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to expand location-based mobile deals to ten additional US cities, hire about 50 people, and continue to build out it’s technology. Thanasis Delistathis of NAV will be joining ScoutMob’s board.
The quirky Scoutmob started out in early 2008 as SkyBlox by members of the former EarthLink Wi-Fi team. In 2010 the company did a nifty pivot/rebrand into the local flash commerce space launching in Atlanta. They soon expanded to New York and San Francisco. The most interesting thing is ScoutMob’s twist on the deal model. They turned it’s on it head.
They are the only company to offer deals free to consumers with no upfront cost. Deals are easily accessible with a location based feature for coupon activation. Merchants only pay upon a redemption at their business. Merchants and consumers have latched on to the innovative model, evidenced by 500,000 users attracted exclusively by word of mouth.
Congratulations to Scoutmob! We know those newly launched cities are going to love ScoutMob as much as the local Atlantans do!