What do you get when you combine shopping and social media?
The answer, it seems, is the latest craze among tech investors.
On Tuesday, Swipely announced $7.5 million in Series A funding and the launch of a service that publishes info about person’s credit card purchases to groups of friends.
The funding was led by Index Ventures, and includes such celebrity patrons of social media as Chris Sacca, an early Twitter backer, and Ron Conway. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, whose VC firm Greylock Partners also took part in the funding round, will join Swipely’s board as an observer.
Swipely’s windfall comes shortly after Blippy pocketed roughly $11 million in funding, according to media reports, to help it push forward with a similar type of service. Among Blippy’s backers are Sequoia Capital and Evan Williams, better known as the CEO of Twitter.
While Blippy publishes financial details of a transaction, like how much money Joe just spent at Chuck E Cheese, Swipely is focused on the goods at the center of the transaction – e.g. Joe just bought a set of Bocce balls – discuss…
Of course, plenty of people already discuss such things by simply sending Facebook or Twitter status updates about their latest purchase or about that new restaurant they just ate at.
