PROVIDENCE – Local startup Swipely opened its site to the American public Wednesday following an invitation-only beta period for the site, allowing consumers to now share and rate their latest buys and bargains.
The purchase-sharing company claims that its new site can help people discover new shops, restaurants and products, and find daily bargains on everyday items such as gasoline.
“We all love to talk about that great new restaurant in town or amazing bargains and deals,” said Angus Davis, Swipely’s founder and CEO. “With Swipely, we’ve created the easiest way for people to start and share these conversations online with their friends.”
Swipely is a free social site designed to import purchase information from credit cards, debit cards or e-mail accounts to share information about what users are buying and from where. According to a company press release, the site has “robust privacy controls” to ensure that only the purchases are shared, not the purchase amount or other sensitive information.
Additionally, Swipely users can add photos and details of their purchases by accessing the catalogs and menus of more than 250,000 retailers and restaurants. Swipely posts can also be shared on other social sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The company is celebrating its public launch with a contest being held over the next four weeks, during which Swipely users can win free music, books, coffee, movies and apps.
Swipely was founded by Davis in 2009, and by May 2010 had raised $7.5M in its Series A round of financing. Davis, a Rhode Island native, also co-founded voice services provider TellMe Networks Inc., which was bought by Microsoft Corp. in 2007.
Additional information is available at swipely.com.
