Firef.ly travel app takes off with Goldsmiths A.I. expertise

A technology collective working with Goldsmiths, University of London to create a unique way of planning and documenting travel has raised over £300,000 through crowd-sourcing in just three weeks.

The Firef.ly team are partnering with the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths to create a mobile app that combines the best of trip planning, travel guide expertise, journal writing and social media.

What is Firef.ly?

Designed for today’s smartphone-enabled traveller, Firef.ly uses a traveller’s GPS trail to ‘stitch together’ the most important elements of a journey, creating a digital map that documents all elements of the user’s journey.

An e-commerce component will then offer the user one-of-a-kind, physical mementos from their journey.

Creative Computing collaboration

Firef.ly founder Chad Cribbins and his team will be working with Dr Mick Grierson and a team of researchers from the Department of Computing to develop artificial intelligence systems for the app, allowing Firef.ly to match user profiles with potential places of interest on their intended journey.

The Computing group will also research the development of smartphone technology that prevents GPS from rapidly reducing a phone’s battery life by being more intelligent about when it is and is not used.

Lastly, they will be working on data mining software- allowing information from Firef.ly to be fed back to international tourism and travel companies so they can better understand their markets.

From napkin sketches to a sophisticated app

“Firef.ly started out as a bunch of sketches drawn on a napkin in Moscow,” explains Chad Cribbins.

“It’s a response to the fragmentation of apps commonly used by travellers - photos on Instagram, social media on Facebook and Twitter, personal blogs for travelogues, journaling on Path. Firef.ly will elegantly capture the entire travel journey.”

A Seedrs campaign in March raised more than £300,000 to invest in the app's development and the project has also received a £380,000 Innovate UK grant from the Technology Strategy Board

Firef.ly gets wings

Firef.ly has been accepted into the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator programme in London, a three-month intensive programme where Microsoft offers promising start-ups support, mentorship, workshops, advice and a space to work.  

From more than 600 companies, it has also been selected as one of 30 to be a part of the London Traveltech Lab, a partnership between London & Partners and the Trampery, an incubator where travel startups are given space and contacts to grow.

Visit Seedrs to watch the video and find out more about Firef.ly.