Congratulating Ditto

Ditto was acquired by Groupon a few weeks ago, and we could not be happier for one of our favorite Finns, Ditto founder Jyri Engestrom, and his awesome team. I first met Jyri over pizza near NYU with Om Malik and our friend Andy Weisman from Union Square Ventures, and was immediately drawn to Jyri’s energy and vision. Jyri is one of those founders whom I knew we just had to work with—his depth of insight and ability to inspire others are truly magical. That evening at Patsy’s Pizzeria was one of connectedness and vision, and I was happy to come out of it with a new friend.

True invested in Ditto in September 2010, and we were inspired by Jyri’s concept for a rich, mobile-first app that would allow users to extract real-world value from their online social graph. All of us at True were honored to be a part of the vision for Ditto, and the app emerged in March 2011 as a beautiful platform to provide a great user experience while facilitating real-world connections.

So much of Ditto’s success comes from Jyri’s deep insights into how people use technology to interact within their worlds. A sociologist by training, Jyri was able to bring a very human perspective to the technology behind Ditto, which was created by an extremely talented team recruited from Helsinki (more on the startup scene in Finland coming in a future post!). Jyri and his team showed us all how to envision, and then build, a beautiful and powerful product. Jyri was an early and pioneering app developer who led the way in terms of fast iteration, intuitive user interface, and deep location integration. He and his team also persevered in the face of setbacks and showed us all what it means to be committed to building something with meaning and beauty.

Jyri has become a great friend to True and everyone within our founder community. It has been a privilege to invest in his company, and we envision a long relationship with Jyri, Ulf and the rest of the Ditto team. It’s been an honor to be a part of Ditto.

Jyri and Team Ditto, congratulations on your much-deserved success and I look forward to our next adventure.