Pelago - Top Wireless Company 2008: FierceWireless, Fierce 15

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:13:38 -0400

Pelago

Where it's based: Seattle, Wash.
When it was founded: 2007
Website: www.pelago.com

Why it's Fierce: Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos didn't just invest in Pelago because of its new mobile social network centered on localized listings, he also invested in the startup because the offering, dubbed Whrrl, is led by two Amazon.com alums, Jeff Holden and Darren Erik Vengroff. The startup has also convinced another heavy-hitter in the investment community, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Whrrl enables users to log onto an interactive map that includes places of interests as marked by friends or other trusted users. Some have dubbed the application Google Maps meets Twitter. Of course, the service is designed to push mobile coupons onto users, too. Holden says the company developed its own location-based technology that improves on GPS--supposedly it can even guess when you are leaving a store as opposed to entering it.

What to look for: Pelago's Whrrl currently supports AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile customers on about a dozen different phones but still requires users to enter their location manually. The startup, however, expects to launch with full-fledged GPS capabilities through a U.S. carrier this year.