Giuseppe Taibi’s Techlog

Shopkick, a Silicon Valley startup that “bridges the mobile and retail worlds“, has been awarded $15M of the smartest money that entrepreneurs can ever dream to get (WSJ, TechCrunch, VentureBeat). It is practically a “Grand Slam” of fund raising, starting with angel money from visionary LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, followed by an A-series from the iFund, a joint effort by legendary VCs Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Apple, and culminated with a B-series round led by Greylock, another  rare “House of Home Runs” in the VC world.

Reid Hoffman explains the disruptive power of shopkick’s mission:

Location-based apps at the intersection of physical retail stores and smartphones are the next big opportunity in mobile. Shopkick will catapult location technology forward, turning offline stores into interactive worlds, and offering retailers and brands the first marketing vehicle that is entirely performance- and location-based.

Related link: shopkick’s first app – CauseWorld