BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Apr 9, 2014) - Drync, a top wine app and leader in visual commerce, today announced it has secured $2.1M from marquee venture and individual investors and has expanded its executive team with the addition of Brian Carr, who has been named COO of the company. Carr comes to Drync from Springpad, a venture-funded Evernote competitor and TIME Magazine top 50 app two years running, where he was VP of Marketing.
Investors in this round include Cross Link Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, KEC Ventures and Foundry Group, which led the largest syndicate on AngelList to date, raising over $434k for Drync. Hubspot founder, Darmesh Shah and ScanScout founder, Wakit Lau, also made individual investments in the company. This seed round is on top of a $900k initial investment in August.
"Drync emerged in August 2013 with a solution for buying wine at the moment of discovery -- try a wine, take a picture of it and buy it in 30 seconds or less," said Brad Rosen, CEO of Drync. "With this round of financing, we will expand this offering to include personalized wine discovery and social engagement that makes buying wine less intimidating, more relevant, and more fun."
Drync also announces the launch of an iPad app, available today on iTunes, in conjunction with a new social activity feed.
The new Drync iPad app features an image-rich interface, designed to encourage wine exploration and discovery. The app also allows users to learn about wines, track what they like, record what is in their wine cellar, stock up on favorites, and share what they like with friends.
The new social activity feature, which runs on all platforms, allows users to view, comment on, and buy what friends and others in the Drync community are enjoying. Deep integration with Facebook and Twitter allows users to filter activity and connect exclusively with friends on Drync.
"Our users have three major requests -- the ability to discover and buy great wines, a way to connect with friends and share experiences, and an iPad-specific product to do both," said Rosen. "The new iPad release is the perfect wine discovery tool, and creates a social platform for sharing and discussing wine."
With the addition of its iPad app, Drync now offers full cross-platform mobile and web commerce and discovery experiences for wine drinkers, including iPhone, iPad, Android and responsive web interface. In addition, access to stories and descriptions about the wine lists is now available in the app to enhance the shopping experience and wine education.
About Drync
Founded in 2008, Drync has become one of the largest mobile social networks for wine drinkers. With instant image recognition of over 3M wines and a sophisticated fulfillment network, Drync allows consumers to find, track, share, and purchase wine at the moment it is most relevant to them -- while they are drinking it -- and discover new wines through relevant recommendations and expert-curated selections. Drync is available on iPhone, Android and iPad and is fully-integrated with a Web platform that is responsive on all mobile devices. www.drync.com
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Erica Zeidenberg
Hot Tomato Marketing
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