VentureBeat

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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Tags: co:Dopplr, deal, inv:Accelerator-Group, people:Dan-Gillmor, people:Joichi-Ito, people:Martin-Varsavsky, people:Reid-Hoffman, people:Saul-Klein