Even though we have consumer giants like Wayfair and TripAdvisor in the Boston area, the city still gets something of a bad rap for not having enough support for consumer-facing companies. The good news is, there are a nice crop of consumer tech startups popping up all over Boston, and many of them are focusing on the mobile space.
Mobile app spending is expected to top $100 billion worldwide within the next five years.
There’s good reason for startups to go this direction. According to a recent report by App Annie, mobile app spending is expected to top $100 billion worldwide within the next five years because smartphones and data plans are becoming cheaper. By 2020, smartphone and tablet users are expected to more than double to 6.2 billion.
We rounded up five Boston mobile startups that have recently made some moves, whether it’s getting new funding, launching a new app or announcing a new business partnership. Regardless, these are all startups you should keep an eye on for the foreseeable future:
CliqBit
CliqBit is a new kind of social media app that recently launched, and it combines elements of Facebook, Instagram and SnapChat. Most importantly, however, the app aims to shed the vanity and perfection that has come to dominate these social networks for many young people, especially women. Instead, the app wants to be a haven for the silly moments of your life. Beyond having some similar functionality to Facebook and other social networks, the app also lets you create your own memes and stop-motion videos. And to make the app less of a competitive space for peers, its version of “likes” only appear to the person who receives them. The startup was co-founded by Wellesley College students Olivia Joslin and Hannah Wei.
Insurify
Insurify is a Cambridge-based startup that recently launched its online marketplace for car insurances that combines predictive modeling and advanced analytics to create a better insurance shopping experience. The startup, which is led by MIT Sloan fellow Snejina Zacharia, recently raised $2 million from Rationalwave Capital Partners. It also recently launched the beta version of Evia, a virtual agent that combines machine learning and natural language processing to let you take a photo of a car’s license plate, text it and then receive policy quotes and recommendations based on the millions of records of personal information and driving history.
Beam
Beam is a Boston-based startup that launched its namesake location-sharing app last year. Founded by Cheapflights.com vets Suzanne Lilley and Milenko Beslic, the startup recently announced its first business partnership, with a travel agency that books spring break packages for college students, that gives a preview of how the app’s monetization plans. Basically, the partnership will let college students going on spring break trips through StudentCity use Beam to find drink deals and the next party location with curated maps. The partnership reflects the startup’s plans for the app in the future: partnering with organizations that have a need to create digital maps for their customers that are temporary, interactive and curated.
Notarize
Notarize is a digital notary service that recently launched on the Apple App Store, and it was founded by Boston investor and entrepreneur Pat Kinsel, who previously worked for Twitter. The app lets you connect with a notary over a FaceTime-like interface so that you can notarize documents from the comfort of your home. Kinsel, who’s a venture partner at Polaris Partners, told BostInno about how he came up with the idea after he broke his leg on a skiing trip and did research over a three-month period while he was recovering. The startup also recently raised a $2.4 million seed round from Polaris Partners, Ludlow Ventures, Crashlytics co-founders Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert and Streetwise Media co-founder Chase Garbarino.
Flyp
Flyp is an app that lets you set up multiple phone lines on your smartphone. Last fall, it launched a new feature that lets you make free calls and texts to 15 European countries from the U.S., which is achieved by transforming Flyp connections into local calls. When we wrote about the new feature, we likened it to what WhatsApp is doing for free international texting. The Boston-based startup most recently raised a $5.8 million round from Aspect Ventures, Acorn Ventures, Structure Capital and several other investors. It plans to use the new funds for development and adding an additional 30 countries to the 17 it already supports. The startup was co-founded by Peter Rinfret, Bob Cleaves, Jeff Stark and Ivan Zhidov.
Photos courtesy of the companies.
