There is a certain honesty about the startup social platform
Wantster: refreshing, useful or perhaps abrupt, depending on your point of view.
Wantster, in a nutshell, is a platform where you collect photos of things that you want, and can share them with others. Conceptually it's not unlike Pintrest, which allows you to collect and share images of things that you like—though Wantster cuts to the chase by forcing us to admit that the things that we like are also often the things that we covet.
It will strike some as crass, perhaps—and others as an incredibly helpful time-saver during the holiday shopping season. (The company's tagline: "Create lists of the things you want and follow others to see what they want for any gift giving occasion." No Santa snail mail required.)
No matter your perspective, some good news in terms of the local startup scene: Wantster, which launched in April, has just closed $4 million in financing. The investment comes from Evanov Communications, an independent radio broadcaster which operates several stations in Toronto (among them the multilingual AM530 and Proud FM 103.9) and several more across the country.
Wantster's frankness may be tapping into something: the company says that "well over" 500,000 wanted products have been posted since the launched. While the company's co-founders haven't divulged what how they plan to use the investment, it seems that at least some of the arrangement includes using the old-media radio stations to develop interest in the new-technology digital platform.
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Wantster