Promo code valid for new bookings made between 9am on 5th September 2022 and 11pm 13th September 2022 for holidays completed by 31/10/23. Spend/saving amount is per booking based on the total price and code must be applied on the ‘extras’ page of /holidays. ^Save up £200 per booking with code HOLIDAYSALE. *Up to 20% off on 1,000,000 seats on selected flights from/to UK and various European destinations, for travel between 5th September 2022 and 31st March 2023. Additional charges for baggage.Ĥ,618 seats to Jersey from various UK airports from £24.99pp one way for travel between September and December 2022. If you, too, have heard this app pop up in conversations, shoot me a message at (Please don’t use this as an opportunity to pitch your Marco Polo alternative.) Thanks all.One way per person, including taxes. Gurley has not yet responded to a request for comment, nor has Joya Communications through a request via their website.)Īnyway, we talk to a lot of people about these things, and we’re intrigued as to what’s going on here. (Of course, it’s possible that something changed and no deal was done from when we heard about it. So, clearly, there must be some potential or business model at play that could be big that we’re not seeing. It might be something along the lines of “oh yeah, I hear they’re doing well” or “where did this thing come from.” The reality is, we’re not quite sure either, but it’s here and it seems on the rise.īut also, throughout talking to people about this app, we heard another tidbit: early Uber investor and Benchmark partner Bill Gurley put money into it. You can start asking around in the investor community and, at SOME point, this app is going to come up in the conversation. The app appears to be the flagship from a company called Joya Communications, which looks like it was founded in 2012. It looks like Joya raised $5 million last year from Battery Ventures and Altos Ventures. On Android, it also has a 4.5-star rating, but with more than 50,000 reviews. And yet, this app has a 4.5-star rating on the App Store with almost 10,000 reviews and has constantly received updates. There really isn’t anything that can easily be found throughout the app’s lifetime. A cursory Google search reveals almost no coverage of this app ( minus a mention in a CNET list of hot apps and a couple of vlogs on YouTube). And, naturally, there are filters.Īnd when we say this is off the grid, we really mean it. And then people keep sending things back and forth, and so on, and so forth. That’s then sent over to the other friend, who can respond right away or open it at their leisure. Users tap on a friend’s face to start a video conversation. But either way, Silicon Valley is buzzing about it.Īs far as we can tell, Marco Polo seems to have a certain Snapchat vibe to it that’s somehow crossed with Tapstack (though on the App Store page, it says messages do not disappear). And there are negative reviews in the App Store referring to spamming contacts (see below).
It also looks like there are some complaints on Twitter. There may be some growth hacking gymnastics going on here, as one Reddit user pointed out that the app sent a bunch of text messages to all of their contacts. Here’s the thing - it looks like the app’s been around for more than a year, and was largely off the grid for its lifetime. That led to the company raising something around $100 million from firms like GGV and Greylock at a $500 million valuation. The app was also around for a while, and then out of nowhere exploded. We’ve seen this story play out before, most recently with musical.ly. Investors are suddenly very interested in this app that - so we hear - might be growing in popularity among the youths. There’s a whisper in the venture community we’re hearing that is growing increasingly louder, and it’s about this video walkie-talkie app called Marco Polo.
0 kommentar(er)
