Refresh Updates Its Mobile Dossier App And Adds A Web View

Refresh, the mobile app that helps make you smarter at meetings, has refined its look and feel in an effort to make its users even more efficient. It’s also launching a web app that will enable users to find out more about the people they’re meeting even when they’re not on the go.

The app officially launched in April to provide mobile dossiers of people that you plan to meet. By connecting with your social networks and email account, Refresh can quickly find publicly available information about the people that you have planned meetings with. Giving those insights into past work experience and interests can be a life-saver for those who hope to stand out from the pack.

With the latest release, Refresh simplifies the information flow that it has created, boiling that information down into sections that can be swiped through. The app analyzes data from more than 100 different sources, and attempts to surface only the most important and relevant information for any given meeting.

Earlier builds of the app provided a scrolling feed of info about a person, but the newest version breaks that down into different sections that can be perused at a glance, depending how in-depth (or not) users want to go. At a high level, though, the app serves to highlight shared contacts and interests between users and the folks they’re meeting with, and also how they got connected.

The app alerts you by push notification or email the key information you need to know ahead of the meeting, so that you’re well-prepared when you walk in. It also lets you take notes about the people that you’re meeting with, so you have them for next time.

The key upgrade in this version of the app, however, is the way in which it simplifies post-meeting action items. That includes the ability to make introductions and connections between contacts and sending emails directly within the app.

In addition to the mobile update, Refresh is launching a new web experience as a complement to the iPhone app. The web version has many of the same features for the contact dossier, enabling users to get the information they need on their smartphone or on their desktop — where, frankly, they are most of the time.

Refresh CEO and co-founder Bhavin Shah acknowledged in an interview that Refresh, like other productivity apps, needs to be available across multiple screens and platforms to be truly useful. “Mobile-first is great but it’s not the entire experience,” he told me.

In addition to web and iOS, the startup is also working on a version for Android, which it hopes to release over the coming months. To reach all those platforms, the company has raised $10 million in funding from investors that include Redpoint Ventures, Charles River Ventures, and Foundation Capital.