Vurb - Find and Save Things to Do

Snapchat is reportedly finalizing an acquisition of Vurb, a search app for smartphones, for well over $100 million in stock and cash, according to The Information. Exactly what Snapchat plans to do with the five-year-old startup isn't clear; Vurb markets its app as a convenient tool for searching, discovering trending topics, and carrying out tasks like making reservations and hailing Uber / Lyft without hopping between several different apps. Here's a writeup The Next Web did on the service last year....

WeChat dominates China with its messaging hub that lets you shop, call a taxi, and pay bills — all from one app. Now, mobile search startup Vurb wants to bring the monolithic app style to the United States with the help of Tencent, WeChat’s developer which has secretly been an investor in Vurb’s $10 million of funding.Step 1 happens today with the launch of a chat feature…

Google Search was not built for mobile. It’s all about lists of web pages, but the small screen is ruled by apps. That’s why if Google launched today, it might look a lot like Vurb…which did launch today.Vurb is a mobile search engine that pulls info from partnered apps like Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, and deeplinks you out to apps like Uber and Google Maps. Rather than send…