Stamped gets a complete overhaul, raises money from an impressive list of strategic investors

Stamped, a company started by former Googlers, has completely revamped its iOS app and approach to surfacing interesting things to share with your friends.

I spoke with Co-founder and CEO Robby Stein this week and they talked to me about their approach and some pretty new investors. First, the company has now raised a total of $3M, which includes a new strategic round with involvement from CrunchFund, Pandora’s Tom Conrad, Eric Schmidt, Brian Lee, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres and Justin Bieber.

How’s that for a list, huh?

Stein told me that Stamped was built out of frustration for existing review services, since subjective experiences just can’t be rated properly. The original version of the app, which was launched about 8 months ago, received a pretty warm reception, but it didn’t set the world on fire.

We were told that hardcore users showed them that it was time to build something bigger, something that could become an important utility in our every day lives. For the past six months, the team has been working on this new version.

Stamped, Take 2

Stein tells me that this new version of Stamped is the “absolute best way to share and discover your favorite things.” Every piece of this app and the experience has been rebuilt, and uses nothing from its predecessor.

The principle that the Stamped team has followed is that everything that you find within the app should be actionable. If someone shares a song that they like, or “Stamp” it with their approval, then you should be able to listen to the song via Rdio.

The interesting twist is that you can only “Stamp” 100 things until people start interacting and liking the things that you’re sharing. Basically, you’re incentivized to stamp really great stuff. I dig that, because it turns a stamp into a form of currency.

Check out the video below, where “The Biebs” discusses some of his favorite things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTquTxfD34I&feature=player_embedded

This version of Stamped has over 30 new features, but don’t call it a “review app”, the team sees it as much more. The web companion is extremely gorgeous, as well:

I wish that more apps would take this approach and not limit themselves to mobile-only.

Give Stamped a try and let us know what you think in the comments!

➤ Stamped for iOS