A 'spontaneous going-out app' is how YPlan founder and CEO Rytis Vitkauskas described his company's main product, when I asked him to explain after meeting up at the recent Web Summit in Dublin, as you can see in the video above.
It's a pitch that's as concise as it is apt: YPlan essentially presents users with a curated shortlist of the best events happening around them, plus an easy way to get in to those events by paying for access.
That curation and true personalisation are key differentiators of the app, Vitkauskas also told me during the video interview, particularly in combination with the app's fast ('two-tap') ticket booking feature.
Last week, word got out that the London-based startup has just raised $24 million in new funding to double down on an indirect sales model that will allow organisers to add and manage their own event listings inside the YPlan app, which will thus become more of an 'event marketplace'.'
At the time of our interview, Vitkauskas told me that YPlan was just over 50 staff and seeing strong growth in the five markets it covers today, with plans to add more cities in the US and Europe in 2015.
Those are also the two regions where YPlan's investors hail from today: the company has picked up just south of $38 million in funding from the likes of Octopus Investments, Wellington Partners, General Catalyst and Nokia Growth Partners since its founding in early 2012.
Like so many other tech startups in London (and elsewhere), Vitkauskas told me the biggest problem hindering YPlan's faster growth is hiring the right talent fast enough.
Another problem, he added, is the classical 'chicken and egg' problem any marketplace faces, meaning the balancing of supply and demand.
The fresh capital gives YPlan more time to figure out the latter problem, and more cash to throw at the best people it can recruit, so we'll see what the future brings.
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