A London company that created an 'intelligence layer' for Twitter just got an important new investment
The money will be used to advance the company's ambition of becoming an "intelligence layer" that sits on top of Twitter.
Right now, Twizoo is in a sort of pre-launch beta mode. It is only available in a handful of cities, and you can only use it to find restaurants and pubs. Ultimately, the company wants to use its algorithm - which pulls data from Twitter to gauge people's opinions on a localised basis - across a range of categories in which people might need to take an instant opinion poll. Restaurants, hotels, movies, politics - you name it, Twizoo can tell you what people are thinking right now, and make live recommendations about it.
Twizoo thus solves a problem that hardcore Twitter users encounter frequently: Twitter is great if you want a live stream of information. But that stream feels disorganised because everything is coming in chronologically. On Twizoo, it's organised for you in a way that is relevant to your interests and your location.
"Our whole vision as a company is much more than restaurant discovery," CEO Madeline Parra told Business Insider. "We want to be the intelligence layer on top of Twitter."
Twizoo is interesting as a tech startup because it is incredibly clever and incredibly simple: It uses Twitter's data rather than its own data, so it doesn't need a massive number of users to work perfectly. Twizoo works just as well when there is only one active user on the system as it does when there are 100 million.
The £1.2 million funding injection is a small sum in the grand scheme of things. Twizoo only has four employees; it will now hire four more. The money will allow Twizoo to launch in San Francisco in May and Washington DC, Chicago, and New York this summer. New versions of the app on iOS and Android are scheduled for later in April 2015.
Parra is particularly excited about Twitter's new deal with Foursquare, which will make Twitter's location function much more accurate. Previously, Twitter might know you were tweeting from somewhere in Waterloo, London. Now it will be able to tell you that a tweet came from the Wahaca Mexican restaurant across the street from Waterloo Station, Parra says.
That is exactly the type of information that is a potential goldmine for Twizoo: Restaurants can advertise on Twizoo by letting the app turn their tweets into ads. Clients can see how many users saw the ad, and how many entered the restaurant later, via beacons that ping their phones when they walk through the door (if that user has Bluetooth switched on.)
The company has an intro programme for advertisers in which they pay a £20 subscription for basic advertising functions. Parra says that program is merely a placeholder to prove that advertising works - the company is currently not putting much effort into it. Twizoo has about 60 clients paying for the platform right now, she says, none of whom have taken advantage of Twizoo's money-back guarantee.
Twizoo's user numbers are confidential but Business Insider understands they are modest as the company is not fully launched yet.
The new funding round comes from European venture capital firm Downing Ventures, EC1 Capital and existing investor Paul Forster, the former CEO and Co-Founder of Indeed.
Here is the press release:
Twizoo, restaurant recommendation app built on Twitter, raises £1.2m to expand to the
U.S. market
Twizoo, a London-based tech start-up that uses Tweets as customer reviews, announced today a Series A investment of £1.2 million led by European venture capital firm Downing Ventures, with additional funds coming from EC1 Capital and existing investor Paul Forster, the former CEO and Co-Founder of Indeed. The financing will be used to expand the team and to launch in four U.S. cities in the coming months.
With the Twizoo app, users can find the best places to eat or drink based on what people are saying on Twitter. On average, there are seven more Tweets about a restaurant for every one traditional review on TripAdvisor or Yelp. With over 30 million Tweets analysed about the London food and drink scene since January 2014, Twizoo cooks down all of this noise into an innovative user interface, using colors and size as cues to where's best and buzzing.
Twizoo is powered by a backend recommendation engine that analyses Tweets about places in real-time as users Tweet them, creating up-to-the-second, dynamic recommendations on the best places around the city. The recommendation engine scours the Twitter firehouse to look for things like sentiment, user credibility, trends, and user influence, constantly adjusting using machine learning techniques.
Madeline Parra, Twizoo CEO and Co-Founder states:
"Twitter is quickly becoming the channel for the customer opinion. At Twizoo, we're passionate about being that intelligent layer built on Twitter that brings to the consumer realtime recommendations to help them discover the best places to eat or drink. There is no longer a need to serve users several month- or year-old tips or anonymous reviews. With the sheer volume of opinions being Tweeted about #foodporn and the like, Twizoo brings a more relevant offering into the hands of users, whether the user has Twitter or not."
Twizoo launched on iOS and Android in July 2014, with thousands of Londoners using Twizoo as their go-to app to find the best restaurants, bars, cafes, and pubs. With a groundbreaking 92% second-open rate, Twizoo has captured a dedicated and growing audience. Twizoo has it sights on San Francisco next, with an early summer launch planned.
Businesses can benefit from Twizoo, too. Twizoo's business platform provides businesses a unique advertising opportunity to expand their organic Twitter reach to Twizoo users. This does not affect their ranking on Twizoo but it gives businesses the ability to automatically promote their Tweets within the Twizoo app.
Download Twizoo for free from the App Store or Google Play. For more information, visit
www.twizoo.com.