The next LAUNCH DFW Dallas Startup Happy Hour has been announced and we’re extremely happy to finally be able to sit down with Rylan Barnes and Alex Muse, co-founders of ShopSavvy.

ShopSavvy is probably one of the most exciting and interesting startups to come out of North Texas since I moved here in 2007. At this month’s event, we’ll talk about how Rylan Barnes developed the initial app, GoGart, won an Android developer challenge, met Alex, formed Big In Japan, struck some big deals, became ShopSavvy, almost sold, and eventually raised $7 million dollars led by Eduardo Saverin.

If you haven’t RSVP’d yet, make sure you do soon over on Meetup. If you’re not yet a member of the group, you will need to apply for (free) membership. Preference is given to technology entrepreneurs actively building local companies and active tech investors.

See you there!

Jewel of the Dallas startup scene, ShopSavvy, has raised a $7 million round of new funding. The round was led by none other that Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin.

While LaunchDFW knew about the round while it was still in the early stages months ago, we’d agreed not to post about it until it closed. Apparently that’s happened now that TechCrunch broke the story.

Very cool to see local startup ShopSavvy getting some air time on Anderson Cooper.

Check out the clip below! Congrats guys!

The MIT Enterprise Forum of DFW is presenting Bootstrapping: Marketing for Startups tonight at the Architel / Shopsavvy offices at Central Expy and Northwest Hwy. A panel of experts will be speaking about raising money from investors, SEO, search marketing, and creating social marketing campaigns. Speakers include Alex Muse from ShopSavvy, Eric McGeHearty of Globe Runner SEO, and Babar Bhatti from MutualMind.

The event kicks off at 6pm with networking, followed by introductions and speakers. Click here to register and for more detail.

It has been a busy week for our friends over at ShopSavvy. On April 1st they introduced their most recent app to the world, Gray Scale, the app that allows people who spend most of their time alone to capture and have real-time access to monochromatic photos and videos of themselves — created by themselves, for themselves. An April Fools joke that ,according to Co-Founder Alexander Muse’s twitter feed, had the Shop Savvy site inundated with traffic from the Grey Scale press.

The Android team at ShopSavvy quietly released Shop Savvy 4.0.9 for Android  last week as well. The update to the Android app includes (via Shop Savvy blog).

- Users can turn on the flash to scan barcodes if they like. I wrote downside of this here.

- App gives you a button to turn on local if you have disabled it for some reason

- Several annoying bugs have been fixed

And just today Shop Savvy released the their estimation of percentage of smartphone users that use Shop Savvy based on a comScore Report on U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share. By their estimation Shop Savvy is used by more than 10% of smartphone users.

- 16,000,000+ Downloads/Installs (200-275K a week)

- 64,000,000+ Updates – 8,000,000+ Current Unique Users

- 3,100,000+ Actives in the last period

= More than 10% of smartphone owners use ShopSavvy

Their blog gives an explanation for each category listed ie. Downloads, Updates, Current Unique Users and Actives in the last period. While the estimation on their market share is debatable, one thing is for sure, with numbers like that, ShopSavvy has come a long way from their 2008 release. We congratulate you on your success.

Download ShopSavvy

ShopSavvy’s Twitter

LaunchDFW has always kept in touch with Alex Muse and ShopSavvy. It seemed like it was about time for an update, and coincidentally, ShopSavvy recently made a big announcement about offering an extension of Groupon’s services.

I caught up with Alex Muse – co-founder of ShopSavvy, late last week after they were voted as the best shopping app with a dominating 58% of the votes on Appscars (http://goo.gl/YXIHK).

ShopSavvy has topped the 12 million user mark, and according to it’s co-founder, is adding hundreds of thousands of users a month. Though the current membership numbers look impressive, because they are likely to continue following the cyclical trends of the retail world, there are high expectations for millions of more users this year.

These membership counts aren’t simply empty user numbers. Alex shared a bit of the magic behind what his app is allowing.

“What is tomorrow?”, Alex asked. “Saturday? And let’s see, it’s February?”

“There will be 5,500 scans of Call of Duty tomorrow”, he said matter-of-factly.

Fascinating.

Using the data collected since the launch of the app, he can actually say, with confidence, that over five thousand people will have the Call of Duty game in their hands tomorrow.

“Think of the possibilities”, I think to myself.

Alex quickly elaborated on some of those very possibilities.

Though I initially thought that most users of such an app would find push notifications to be intrusive, I was told that more than 62% of ShopSavvy users opt in for said notifications.

After thinking about it a bit more I reconsidered my stance and realized that, if I too, stood in a local retailer with a $50+ game in hand, I would welcome potential offers from competitors.

If you consider the amount of data that ShopSavvy currently has, it seems only natural for it to team up with a service such as Groupon. Just think of the custom offers that can be made to users when the two are teamed together.

In other news, you may have heard that ShopSavvy is opening an office out West.

I asked Alex what was up with the plans to leave D-Town. He replied simply, “Growth.”

Though they have checked out Twitter’s old space, there isn’t anything hammered out, just yet, as to where they’ll end up. There are key parts of the ShopSavvy team who live in California, and it simply makes sense for recruiting purposes to have a West side presence, though Alex and the current Texas-based team have no plans of leaving the metroplex.

Shop Savvy has been nominated in the Best Shopping App category and you can help the local Dallas company win with your vote.

From the contest website:

Shop Savvy Barcode Scanner: It looks like a regular barcode scanner app at first glance, but ShopSavvy claims its free app has support for more than 20,000 big-name retailers including Best Buy, Target, and Walmart–plus online stores such as Amazon.com and Buy.com. It also features an attractive UI with easy price comparisons for local and web retailers, plus configurable price alerts. A built-in store info database lets you get directions, e-mail links, launch a store’s website, and call the store directly from the Android/iOS app.

The poll is open from now until Thursday, February 24 at 9:00 a.m. Did we forget someone? Feel free to add write-ins in the comments below. Then tune in Thursday for the Best Social Networking App category.

Show some support for a local Dallas startup and vote here! Voting ends 2/24 at 9am so get them in now!

ShopSavvy has announced Matthew Weathers, former product lead for PayPal Mobile, has joined as vice president of product to lead development of its mobile commerce strategy. He will be based in the company’s San Francisco offices.

Last month, ShopSavvy introduced QuickPay 1.0 on both the iPhone and Android smartphones enabling consumers to easily buy an item through the ShopSavvy app and have it shipped to their home. Weathers will focus on the upcoming launch of QuickPay 2.0, which will support point-of-sale purchases via near field communication (NFC).

ShopSavvy announced on Tuesday that version 4 of their popular application has been released for the Android platform.

The much-anticipated update, which was released for iPhone back in November, brings a variety of new features to the Android application including:

• Major Look & Feel Overhaul.
• Deals, Live and Local.
• New Scanner Technology.
• Enhanced Product Coverage.
• More Complete Social Integration.
• Battery Life Improvements.
• App to SD Card.
• Search Widget.
• Enhanced Retailer Information.
• User Generated Content.
• AdOns.

With over 10 million users on Android, the new feature set is surely being put through the paces.

Big in Japan has announced that their latest version of the popular shopping app, Shop Savvy, is available in the iTunes store for all iPhone & iPod touch users.

The update brings a UI refresh as well as improved barcode scanning and other new features. Check out the video below!

Summary from the ShopSavvy blog:

New features in ShopSavvy 4 include:

• 5x faster scanning. ShopSavvy 4 offers scanning that’s five times faster than any previous version of ShopSavvy for iPhone, with the ability to scan barcodes from any angle. It makes it easier than ever to scan every item before you buy it.
• Add and share product photos and prices. When users find a product, price or retailer that’s not already in ShopSavvy’s price comparison engine, they can instantly add it – taking the product’s photo and adding the price, store name, and other descriptive information. ShopSavvy 4 filters user submissions to optimize accuracy.
• Add and share product ratings and reviews. In previous versions of ShopSavvy, users could scan books, DVDs, consumer electronics and other products to call up third-party online reviews. In ShopSavvy 4, users can add their own ratings and reviews — and share them with the universe of ShopSavvy users.
• Instant sharing on Facebook and Twitter. Find a hot deal? Tell all your friends on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks with a tap of your screen.
• Search by product name. When you want to compare prices without using your scanner, ShopSavvy 4 lets you search by product name, adding as-you-type suggestions to help you find your product fast.
• Streaming deals. ShopSavvy 4 offers a Twitter-like stream of special deals and short-term promotions aggregated from sources across the Web, as well as exclusive deals for ShopSavvy users.
• Find out retailer price-matching policy and if items are in stock. ShopSavvy 4 lets you know if the store where you’re scanning will match the lowest price. ShopSavvy 4 also tells you if products are in stock at nearby stores.
• Highly targeted advertising. For advertisers, ShopSavvy 4 now offers AdOns®, — highly targeted advertising, coupons, warranty offers, and promotions at the point of highest purchase intent, when users are standing in a retail store with a potential purchase in hand. AdOns combine location- and product-specific data to deliver precise marketing content to users.

To download ShopSavvy 4 in the iTunes Stores, visit http://bit.ly/shopsavvyiphone.