On the Radar…

Last evening Denver-based Brightkite, a mobile location-based social network, announced it would merge with Limbo, another mobile social network based in California. In joining forces, the companies -rebranded singularly as Brightkite – will count over two million users and maintain offices in California, Denver, and Helsinki, Finland. Along with pooling members, the merger accentuates the strengths of each organization. Both companies offer members the ability to broadcast their current location (through the GPS chip in a mobile device, or manually) to a pre-selected group of friends, and comment on what they’re doing or perhaps share a photograph. Yet pre-merger Brightkite brings potency in its positioning capability, linked as it is to databases filled with point of interest information tied to GPS coordinates. Limbo was originally more activity focused, allowing a user to geo-locate friends on the basis of what they were doing – drinking coffee, doing yoga, or touring a museum. Even with 35 employees the new company will enjoy a bit of a runway, given that Limbo raised $9 million in January of this year from lead VC Nexit Ventures, with Azure Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and New Enterprise Associates participating. Brightkite, meanwhile, was funded with $1 million in angel seed capital and was a member of the TechStars class of 2007. The merger itself was largely financed with Limbo stock.