Gobi from Norway raises $500k to compete with Snapchat.

Gobi, a Palo Alto and Oslo based startup providing a mobile social network for story sharing, raised $500k in fresh equity. The money comes from a range of Norwegian private investors, including Petter Northug, Johan Odvar Odfjell and Gustav Magnar Witzøe, and the transaction was made at a $15M valuation.

Gobi was founded in 2015 by a group of five students and is led by CEO Kristoffer Lande, also one of the co-founders. They have developed a mobile platform that enables users to create public and private groups where they can share photos and videos that stay around for three days before dissapearing. Initially, Gobi was launched as a Snapchat group for the local school, and in time a standalone app was developed.

Currently, Gobi has about 70k active users from 100 countries and makes money by providing advanced features for companies, organizations and influencers.