Dopplr, a trip-sharing site for the jet set
Dopplr, a Helsinki, Finland company that lets frequent travelers share their trips with friends and so that they make notes on each other’s itineraries, has raised an undisclosed amount of financing from individual investors.
Sharing travel plans isn’t new. A plethora of sites offers ways to consult with others on travel plans, from MyTripbook, to RealTravel to Tripwiser. The difference is, most other travel sites offer trip-sharing as part of a much larger palette of offerings.
Dopplr does it with laser focus. The company has not launched yet, but is inviting people to test it. It is straight-forward and very simple. You sign up, and then are taken to a profile page where you can add your trips — it prompts you for your destinations and dates. You can add notes for each trip, and then invite others to see and correspond. Dan Gillmor, a former Mercury News columnist who has dabbled in several investments recently, is a co-founder, and invited us to share his travels. See a screenshot below.
I like the service’s simplicity. On the other hand, it’s clearly a service designed only for frequent fliers (the rest of us won’t need to use it).
It works well on the mobile number. You register your phone, and then you can SMS someone’s email address to Doppler’s London number +44 7797 806 170 to invite them to see your schedule (there’s no U.S. number, so it won’t work locally yet, but that’s coming).
Investors include Martin Varsavsky, Joichi Ito, Reid Hoffman and The Accelerator Group led by Saul Klein — all of whom use Dopplr, and are well-known for their investments in Internet companies (including Last.fm, Joost, Flickr, Stardoll, and Netvibes to name a few).
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
