Wigo, also known known as the “Who is going out?” app, is a free iOS application primarily used to help college kids meet up and decide where to go out. Given the company’s user growth so far, however, Wigo is now expanding to cover more than just .edu users, TechCrunch reports.
With this expansion, called Wigo Summer, founder and CEO Ben Kaplan hopes to build on the traction that his platform has seen on college campuses. Thus far, the app has gained users at more than 1,300 schools and Kaplan has “unlocked” approximately 75 colleges — meaning that they have enough users to make the application functional.
The startup has been testing Wigo Summer over the past week and claims to have already added 21,000 new users, TechCrunch reports. In addition, the company raised $1.5 million at a $14 million valuation in February for the move, and it plans to devote “99 percent” of its marketing efforts on the New York and Boston markets.
On Wigo, users are able to create and publicize events in an effort to advertise where people are going out. The app shows plans posted by a user’s friends along with the night’s most popular localized events. The service works by helping users choose the best destinations, based on attendance and social media buzz/hype. Once registered, you can invite friends to events and post pictures, videos and messages directly to an event’s profile page in order to show others what the scene is like in realtime.
In addition to expanding its user base, the app has undergone a major makeover in the form of a new Geolocation feature. A feature was also developed by Tinder founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, who are investors in Wigo; the feature enables users to see local events posted from both Wigo and cross platform competitor, Facebook, as well as a highlight reel of the previous week’s top events, according to TechCrunch.
Wigo attracted national media attention on college campuses this past spring with its “Wigo Madness Bracket challenge,” which was an NCAA March Madness-style tournament with a Wigo-sponsored party as the grand prize.
The challenge pitted schools in head-to-head match-ups, awarding points based upon user growth/adoption rates, amount of content posted and user likes.
Wigo is clearly hoping to ride this wave into the mainstream market— introducing the app to an audience of young professionals and recent college graduates who are already familiar with the service.
Wigo is based out of Paul English’s consumer technology startup hatchery Blade in Boston, and Blade is among the investors in the company.
Other investors include Vince Wilfork of the New England Patriots; Ben Fischman, founder and former CEO of Rue La La; James van Riemsdyk of the Toronto Maple Leafs; and Kevin Colleran, an early Facebook employee now with General Catalyst Partners. Firms that are backing Wigo include Great Oaks Venture Capital, Greylock Partners, GGV Capital and KEC Ventures.
