How it all began...

In the Spring of 2005, Sam Altman, a sophomore computer science major at Stanford, had an epiphany as he walked out of class. Turning to his friends, classmates, and eventual co-founders Nick Sivo and Alok Deshpande, Sam asked, "wouldn't it be great if I could open my mobile phone and see a map of where all my friends are?"

From that idea Loopt was born. That summer the team was able to secure funding to build a prototype service from Y Combinator, an early stage investment company that helps young entrepreneurs get past the challenges of starting a business.

By September of 2005 the response to the prototype was so strong that the Loopt team made the decision to leave school and pursue their dream full time. Co-founders Rick Pernikoff, a childhood friend of Sam's and student at MIT, and his brother Tom Pernikoff joined the team, and by October '05 the service was complete enough for Sam to consider raising more money to build the business.

After considering a number of offers the team decided to accept an offer of $5M from Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates, two of the premier venture capital firms in the world, and the investors behind Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, Tivo, and many other prominent technology businesses. The team moved into Sequoia's incubation space where they shared office space with the YouTube team, and then quickly moved into their first real office.

Since 2006, Loopt has grown to over fifty employees and launched its social mapping service across multiple wireless carriers and mobile devices. The Loopt team continues to deliver on the original passion of building a truly interoperable and accessible location-based service.