Urturn secures USD13.4m investment led by Balderton Capital

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22.05.2013

Urturn, the social platform for self-expression, has today announced the completion of a $13.4 million from Balderton Capital and Debiopharm Group. In addition, Urturn is announcing the launch of its mobile app. The company was launched by brothers Alexandre and Stelio Tzonis, Mathieu Fivaz and Vincent Borel. It employs 25 people in Lausanne, London and Silicon Valley.

Urturn (formerly known as Webdoc) is a fast and playful way to share a unique view of the world with friends, followers and celebrities. By simply flicking through Urturn’s range of ready-made templates and choosing an Expression to suit their mood, users can instantly express themselves in an ever-growing variety of ways – from personalising images with doodles, captions or music clips to creating collages or inviting the community to cast votes on sets of pictures. Whether Expressions are shared on Urturn or on other social media platforms and websites, the innovative ‘Your Turn’ button enables users to share new interpretations of other people’s posts and join in with movements spreading across the web. With the launch of the Urturn mobile app, users will be able to spontaneously capture moments of inspiration on-the-fly.

“While existing social platforms have focused on connecting people and all provide finite ways for interacting online, we’ve focused on how people interact – providing an ever-growing variety of rich and playful ways for our users to express themselves. Born out of the acknowledgement that users want to be more expressive, Urturn is the next natural step for social media,” comments Stelio Tzonis, CEO at Urturn. “We believe our mobile app will make Urturn more accessible and enable people to share Expressions more spontaneously.”

The Series A fundraising includes a $10.7m investment by Balderton Capital, whose past investments include Housetrip. It comes at a time of increased speculation around waning interest in Facebook among teens and growing interest in social platforms that support more creative ways for users to interact. The private equity arm of Debiopharm Group invested the remaining $2.7m. As part of the agreement, Balderton’s founding partner Barry Maloney will join Urturn’s board.

“When we first met the team behind Urturn, we could see that their idea would transform the way people around the world express themselves through social media and we wanted to be involved,” comments Barry Maloney, founding partner at Balderton Capital. “Using Urturn’s Expressions, users can enjoy sharing unique content in the fastest, clearest and most engaging ways yet. We are excited to watch the progress and continued word-of-mouth endorsements that have earned Stelio and his team the support of many loyal users already.”

“We’re honoured to have the support of Balderton Capital,” continues Stelio Tzonis. “As well as being one of the preeminent VCs in Europe, they have a great track record in taking European start-ups to the US.”

The platform has already received significant interest from the music industry, with artists rapidly recognising that it provides fun new ways to connect with their fans. Artists that have already signed up to the platform include Alicia Keys, David Bowie, One Direction, Green Day, UNIONJ, Ellie Goulding, The Gossip, Carly Rae Jepsen and Kendrick Lamar.

Webdoc, the company behind urturn, was founded in 2008.

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