This Australian startup thinks it can beat Snapchat

Your basic Bomb'd interface. Australian social media startup Bomb'd has just completed its launch phase, signing up over 11,000 active users in its first 3 weeks, 8,000 more than main rival Snapchat during the same time frame.

After launching locally, Bomb'd is is now expanding globally, opening up an office in Los Angeles and targeting the 150,000 college students heading on Spring Break this week.

The idea is that it's an "on demand" social media network where, rather than waiting for someone to post something, you send a "bomb" to a friend with a 3-hour expiry to trigger. When the "bomb" is triggered by the person receiving it, their camera counts down from 7 and automatically takes a picture sent back to the "bomber".

The founders, who don't want to be named and answered our questions via email, said the concept was born from human curiosity.

"We wanted to know what our friends were up to, we wanted to be able to see it in image form and we wanted it to be real time and unfiltered," they said.

"When your mates happen to be in different states, countries and have other things going on, the act of sending a bomb really just asks them what they are up to right now."

They're pretty confident that it can compete against the big guys too with something that sets them apart from competitors.

"Bomb'd offers something that no other social media app has – the ability to request content from friends and for people to find out what their mates are really doing right now."

"We are in a completely different category and are a truly social app, encouraging interaction between friends and beginning a conversation."

The startup is claiming it's now worth more than $10 million, despite not declaring who is behind it or the investors.

Asked where their funding came from, they simply said they had to seek it from open-minded investors willing to take a chance and come up against Snapchat and that they span the technology, media and corporate sectors.

Business Insider was able to find one of the developers, Wee Keat Chin, who has done a lot of work for Oxygen Ventures in the past, which could indicate they're a big investor.

Regardless, the Bomb'd team have big plans for the next 12 months. They've partnered with a bunch of high schools and colleges in the US to try and get the app right into young people's hands and want to focus on building a strong team stateside.

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