Refresh
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched2 / 4
Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Refresh was a Palo Alto startup founded in 2011 by Bhavin Shah and Paul Tyma that built a 'digital briefing book' iOS app. It gave users the right insights about the people they were about to meet — pulling from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, GitHub and other sources, plus the user's own email, calendar and notes, to surface recent interactions, news mentions and shared interests. The pitch: discover common ground, skip small talk and spark what is possible in every conversation. The company raised about $10 million from Redpoint Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Foundation Capital and Haystack.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Refresh was founded in Palo Alto as a personal-dossier iOS app for professional meetings, raising about $10 million in venture funding.
- Acquired
LinkedIn acquired Refresh in a talent-and-technology deal with undisclosed terms; 12 of the 15-person team joined LinkedIn, and the Refresh app stopped accepting new users, shutting down on April 15, 2015.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
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Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.