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August 13, 2012 07:56 pm GMT

The Mobile Personal Shopping Assistant: Swirl Exits Stealth With 30K Stores Signed On, $6M In Backing

swirl screenshot 2Add one more startup to the hopefuls looking to corner the market for location-aware offers for shoppers: Swirl Networks today exits stealth mode with a website and free iOS app to help people find the best fashion deals closest to them, lead them to physical stores to make purchases, and then share that experience with others. It may be a crowded space, but Swirl is one to watch: itis hitting the ground running with 220 deals in place with major brands like Macy's, Nordstrom, and Old Navy, covering 30,000 stores and 100,000 items in the U.S.; and a first round of funding totaling $6 million from Softbank, General Catalyst, Longworth Venture Partners and the founders of GSI Commerce, the e-commerce company that sold to eBay last year for $2.4 billion.While a lot of mobile commerce startups are about mobile-based transactions, the distinctive point of Swirl is that it is squarely focused on offline shopping. FounderHilmi Ozguc -- a serial entrepreneur that soldMaven Networks to Yahoo! for $160 million and Narrative Communications to @Home Networks for $100 million -- describes Swirl as "zigging while everyone else is zagging" because that is where the money, and existing pain points, are. Fashion is currently a $400 billion business, he says, but over 90% of it is purchased in store, with only 3% online (and even less so on mobile).

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/XxmXUOkKFqk/

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