Bump Technologies, the startup behind the very popular iPhone application Bump, has closed a funding round led by Sequoia Capital. We had heard whispers of the news weeks ago, but the company declined to comment on it. Today though, during Sequoia Capital Partner Greg McAdoo’s presentation at Y Combinator Startup School, we got all the confirmation we need: Bump was listed on one of his Powerpoint slides as a company Sequoia has funded this year.
Bump once again declined to comment on the funding and the amount, but the cat is out of the bag. We’ve heard the amount raised was over $1 million, and are looking into getting more details.
For those who haven’t used it, Bump offers mobile apps that let you transfer information (like contacts and even multimedia) simply by tapping two phones together.
The company is also Y Combinator-funded, and has been featured in Apple’s TV ads.
Update: A source tells us the was a $3 million venture raise at a $10 million post-money valuation.
Bump Technologies
Congrats Bump team you guys deserve it! Cool app, scrappy startup team. Rock on!
Bump is a really cool and smart idea.
However, their app doesn’t seem like it’s going to go gangbusters for Sequoia. And Sequoia seems to only go big.
I bet they’re looking at the IP of the company, and thinking about licensing as the company’s future. Especially as smart phones profilerate.
Smart move.
http://www.traderbots.com
This is just embarassing. Sequoia has completely lost its mind. Bump will never be a business. Ever. No wonder Sequoia Fund 11 LP commitments are trading at $0.50 on the dollar. What a waste of societal resources.
Right. A startup can never ever change and/or expand from its original product…
If your mind was any smaller or less imaginative, you would work at the drive-thru until retirement.
Dear Bump,
Please add the ability to exchange public keys. Integrate with GnuPG. If everyone could easily use and understand PKI, it would help out immensely.
there is no situation when it comes in handy
tapp swapp app, flipp flapp.
Another success out of the University of Chicago. They won the university’s 2009 business plan contest.
That substantially diminishes my opinion of the U of C.
Why does this need an investment?
For the same reason public companies go negative EPS, seek credit facilities, or make secondary offerings>>>Growth!
Staff-up and market their product(s).
Congrats! So happy for you!
Arrington must hate this, it involves hands touching!
Bump could use their same app engine for :-
1) P2P Money Transfer
2) P2P Coupons
3) Micro Payments.
That’s what the money could be for.
totally agree
This is nothing about exchanging details on the iPhone.
Imagine being able to exchange funds
I pay for the meal and my friends bump me their portion of the cash.
Bump for a Caltrain ticket anyone?
great app but only the beginning for the team in my opinion
Best of luck to Bump. I think this is quite an interesting functionality. Even if it can’t eventually be monetized (which is still to be seen), selling the end-product as a plug-and-play functionality to an existing vendor is perfectly imaginable.
The only way for something like this to be successful is for it to be an OS-level default feature…like ‘beaming’ on the Palm.
Everything about Bump rocks: the first product, the team, the technology behind it.
Why do people find this cool?
In the time it takes to have someone download the damn app you could have had them type in the contact info!
This has to be built into each iPhone that ships for it to be useful.
Bump was 2009.
http://www.fliing.org
Coming Soon.
I checked out their app on the App store, and saw WAAAAY too many five-star reviews with extremely short comments from users who hadn’t reviewed any other apps. I think these guys are astroturfing their reviews, and that can get you bounced out of the App store.
They’re doomed.
You seem completely oblvious. Because some concept is in use somewhere in the world already, it can’t be brought to new regions? Do you even understand why contactless payments work in Japan? FeliCa is a proprietary technology from Sony, and most Japanese citizens have a bank account at ONE institution (not fractured like the US).
Contactless payments probably won’t happen in the US until VISA/ Mastercard work out their issues with ATT/Verizon and who gets to collect the majority of fees. There is no longer a technical barrier.