Hobspot, a new social platform that connects people through shared interests and proximity, recently launched, following a successful raise of $450,000 through its investment company, ASG Capital Group.
The investment comes from prominent business leaders, property developer Nigel Satterley and iiNet executives Maryna Fewster and Matt Toohey, which will be used to grow the platform’s user base nationally ahead of launching a targeted advertising revenue model and global expansion.
Founded by Alfonso Ordonez, Sam Ethell and Gustavo Campos, the idea for Hobspot came about organically when Co-Founders Ordonez and Ethell met at an Oktoberfest event in 2014. Across a crowded room a ‘bromance’ was born when the pair were united over their shared love of sport, a connection sparked because Ethell was wearing an Ohio State basketball jersey.
Making it easier to make friends
“We saw an opportunity to connect people through their shared interests in the same way we had formed our friendship over basketball. There are many people, in particular International students, who are looking to build connections with like-minded people, but don’t know where to start to find them.”
A native of Colombia, Ordonez has had five major moves following his academic and entrepreneurial pursuits around the world and understands the advantages of relationships — being well-connected socially and professionally.
“Whether it is age-related or life-event-related, research shows that our networks change once we hit our late 20s, but our desire for connection does not. Hobspot is an alternative to existing social networking sites in that it transcends the digital and physical worlds,” says Ordonez.
“The idea of interest-based networking unleashes the true power of the internet by bringing the world together and allowing for the organic formation of communities.”
What exactly does Hobspot do?
By targeting a specific audience, Hobspot creates an automatic bond between people who are in their proximity, offering the possibility to make that connection in real life. This targeted audience is what has been the main attraction for investors says Ethell, of their plans to take advantage of many different advertising avenues and channels.
“Once the investors understood the metrics we could collect and the ability to reach niche interest groups on the platform, the conversation changed very quickly. Using key statistical information on user activity we are able to feed this in to advertisers to develop highly targeted advertising campaigns,” said Ethell.
“This is a unique opportunity for advertisers to remind a targeted audience at a contextual and relevant time, for example, advertising new running shoes by Nike within the jogging category, where users are already interested in this type of product.”
“With an increasing active user base, this proposition will become very attractive to bigger players in the market.”
Hobspot has also developed key strategic partnerships with both corporate and consumer base companies including the Melbourne Football Club, Melbourne University and Student Edge as part of the launch this month.
“This new funding will enable Hobspot to continue to build on the platforms capabilities and extend our focus on leveraging these partnerships to grow key user groups, with the vision to advance the business ahead of a second round of capital raising of $8-10M in April this year,” says Ordonez.
