Loop’d Network, an online network for action sports like surfing and snowboarding, has secured an $800,000 in an undisclosed round of funding from investor Tech Coast Angels and existing private investors.
Loop’d, which currently has 500,000 members, says it will use the new funds to development an ecommerce and social merchandising strategy. Loop’d’s platform is a social network for athletes to promote themselves and and participate in a network of online communities based around action sports. Loop’d lets also members connect with brands, including Monster, Oakley and PacSun, for sponsorship.
Wow, it seems like there’s lots of funding available all of the sudden.
Wait, who is Loop’d and Loopt? I am confused. Such is the word of Sanjay.
Yeah I think the Loopt guys are going to get legal on this one.
Sure Loopt = mobile social.
Loopd = social sports.
But Loopt could claim they intend to develop social apps around sports and hence the Loopd name is similar enough to infringe on their trademark.
good instincts. That already occurred and was settled.
Great company with excellent potential. One of the first to figure out how to monetize social networks.
I agree that Loop’d should change its name for its own good – both to avoid a legal issue and pronunciation wise they are too close for either company’s good.
Looks like an interesting company though! Congrats to the founders!
I am pretty sure they settled the legal issues before this round of funding was able to go through
Are you guessing or you know?… Search Twitter (go back a few pages since this PR is most recent) for “loopd” and you’ll notice a lot of users are actually referring to Loopt. That is a problem and I doubt they’d just drop the issue.
Yeah, Loop’d needs to create a new brand name ASAP to establish themselves better.
Most action sports kids I’ve asked have never heard of Loop’d, yet anyone with an iPhone knows about Loopt.
I agree, a ton of confusion on the name(s) and more people are aware of Loopt than Loop’d.
I am about 99% sure the legal issue was settled though.
Didn’t say they dropped the issue, just that it was settled.
I guess Loopt finally when out of business and moved on to this?
Nice to see a San Diego tech company get some press; there aren’t many of them. Thanks TC!
Loopt has already filed a lawsuit against Loop’d… anyone know what happened with that?
http://www.moco...ame-similarity/
Wow, another company raising a ton of $$ with a crappy business and domain name. Please either rebrand, or at least buy the looped(.com) domain name.
HAHAHA – Loopt owns looped.com
This is a brand disaster in the making!
What’s crappy out it? They make money and just got funding.
HA! Sounds like you too have confused the two companies. Loopt (mobile) owns looped.com instead of Loopd.
That my friend is crappy for Loopd because nobody would hear their brand name and type “loopd.com”.
Fortunately for them if you type “looped” into Google Loopd comes up and Loopt does not.
Sounds like both companies should have thought about this before picking a stupid, obscure name.
yes, somewhat confusing, but you could say the same thing with Flickr and Flicker. I think based on the comment below from Mike, they could care less. Loopt is a creapy business anyway that has massive competition now…good luck with that
They probably need the money to scale their Windows/IIS system. Get a new brand name and fire your system admin before it’s too late!
+1 Linux
Whoever decided to use IIS is an idiot. All social networks (except the failing MySpace) use LAMP. Good luck trying to integrate .NET with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
What happened to Loopt anyway? Since their big appearance at a apple keynote I’ve heard nothing from them.
A great looking, sounding and unconfusing domain name is irreplaceable and necessary.
Actually, Loopd, isn’t even what they originally branded as. It used to be sponsorhouse. I work in the action sports industry, and people who use this service still refer to it as sponsorhouse. The track presence at all the races and events are advertised as sponsorhouse. It may not be huge in the grand scheme of things, but we have to remember that these niche market startups are rocking small industries. There is no war of loopt and loopd – Because loopd doesn’t care! It has full dominance in the industry its aiming for.
@Mike – Dominance in the industry? Maybe motocross, but not in the skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing or surfing industry.
I too work in the action sports industry for a major skate/surf brand and just emailed 10 people at my work to ask if they’ve ever heard of Loop’d or Sponsorhouse. The result: nobody had heard of Loop’d and only 2 people said they’ve heard of Sponsorhouse, but both said it was years ago and thought they went under.
Definitely didn’t go under. We’ve been working with them for 2001 and watched them grow. It’s been pretty cool since i knew the founders early on.
LMFAO, this is so 2004! Why would anyone still invest in a closed social network that doesn’t leverage existing social APIs like Facebook, Twitter, OpenSocial or the iPhone? Sounds like they fooled their investors.
Wonder what percentage of their 500k users are actually active – probably less than 10-20%. Zzzzzz.
+1 Ravi
The funny thing is: they are making money and all the hyped “so 2009″ aren’t…
Loopd has agreed to stop using loopd as part of recent settlement with loopt. Not sure what they are going to rebrand with but maybe it will be back to sponsorhouse?
This company will be in the dead pool soon. How can a company without any software developers survive (everyone quit)? Who’s going to change the domain from loopd now that they have agreed to stop using loopd?