Great Oaks Venture leads $1.5 mln round for Wigo

Wigo said Tuesday it closed a $1.5 million extension of its seed round led by Great Oaks Venture Capital. Other investors in the round include Greylock Partners, GGV Capital, Blade, KEC Ventures, as well as angel investors including Jean Pigozzi and Brian Guttman. This extension follows an initial seed round of $550,000 Wigo raised over the summer. Boston-based Wigo is an app geared for college students that lets them figure out who is going out and where.

PRESS RELEASE

BOSTON, Feb. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Wigo, the “who’s going out” app for college students, today announced that it has closed a$1.5M extension of its seed round of funding led by Great Oaks Venture Capital. Other investors in the round include Greylock Partners, GGV Capital, Blade, KEC Ventures, as well as angel investors including Jean Pigozzi and Brian Guttman. This extension follows an initial seed round of $550k that the startup raised in the summer of 2014 with investors including Tinder co-founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, Kayak.com founder Paul English, Facebook’s first sales guy Kevin Colleran, and Super Bowl champion Vince Wilfork.

“The entire Wigo team is excited to have such great partners supporting our mission to change the way students plan their social lives. We want to build an app that college kids physically can’t function without,” said Ben Kaplan, Wigo’s founder and CEO. “We’ve seen some awesome initial traction across college campuses thus far, but we think this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Wigo allows college students to quickly figure out who’s going out and where. Its student-only filter blocks all townies, adults, and other randos. Wigo has been downloaded at over 1,400 college campuses across the U.S. to date, and the company has doubled its employee base this semester as a result of its rapid adoption on campuses nationwide. Wigo’s growing team includes founder and former D-I college hockey player Ben Kaplan, CTO Giuliano Giacaglia, an MIT graduate with a master’s in Artificial Intelligence & Computer Science, plus University of Maryland sorority and fraternity social chairs Claire Uhar and Tyler Swartz who now lead Wigo’s business development and outreach. The team came together with diverse strengths, but a shared enthusiasm for the app and its potential.

Consistently updating the app to meet students’ demands, Wigo’s latest features include Event Highlights where students can upload pictures from an event and rate them, plus a new “Peek” feature that allows users to get a live look into the top partying schools across the country. Wigo also launched Wigo Rewards this semester, enabling college students to earn money for hosting an event and getting their classmates to attend.

For more information about Wigo or to download the app, visit https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wigo-who-is-going-out/id689401759?ls=1&mt=8 or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whoisgoingout.wigo.

About Wigo

Wigo is the “who’s going out” app for college students. Wigo helps students quickly figure out who’s going out and where. Group texts and Facebook events are lame ways to make plans, and Wigo’s student-only filter blocks all townies, adults, and other randos. Wigo is a privately held company based in Boston, Mass. Investors include Tinder co-founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, Kayak.comfounder Paul English, Rue La La and Lids founder Ben Fischman, Facebook’s first salesperson Kevin Colleran, New England Patriots player Vince Wilfork, and Toronto Maple Leaf and U.S. Olympian James van Riemsdyk. For more information, visit http://www.wigo.us/.