Norwegian startup Gobi raised $500,000 at a $15 million valuation to take on Snapchat with its “Stories” communication tool. The platform enables users to create public and private groups where users can share photos and videos that stay around for three days before vanishing into digital pixel-dust.
“We originally created a Snapchat group for our college,” says Kristoffer Lande, Gobi’s CEO. “And the group rapidly grew to 4,000 users. Snapchat wasn’t a big fan, so they shut it down after about 24 hours. Everybody loved the community group, however, so we decided to build our own app.”
One of the uses for the app is to ask for opinions; whether someone thinks your shoes are hot or not, or whether you should buy a particular shade of sunglasses.