What?

LocalUncle makes life in the city easier. Ask questions about places and neighborhoods and get answers from people on the ground. It’s the best way to search and find out about anything in your city, as it’s happening.

Why?

We believe that people are fundamentally good. We believe that people like to help others when they need help. We built LocalUncle so we could harness this altruism and magnify it…and in doing so, we end up with something that is more valuable than the sum of its parts. We believe that a more open and connected world is a better world and we do our part by allowing you to communicate freely with perfect strangers across neighborhoods, cities, countries and continents. LocalUncle takes these strangers and connects us all as a family – one that is respectful and helpful to all other family members. It only works because every one of us takes the time to answer a question when we receive one…and together, we will change the world.

How?

LocalUncle gives you the ability to ask questions about your city, its neighborhoods and places and get real-time responses from people who are there right now. Your questions are sent to users who are at the location you’re asking about – who better to let you know what’s going on? And really, those users are like having a good friend at every bar, store, and neighborhood in your city, who you can text and ask anything you need to know. Talk to your city, in real-time, and know before you go. Yes, like a crystall ball. Yes, because it’s magical. And yes, it’s from the future.

Where?

We are headquartered in beautiful Zollikon (right next to the lake of Zurich) in Switzerland.

Who?

LocalUncle was created by two engineers educated in Switzerland who not only share a deep passion for technology, business and the web but also their First Name: Philip and Philipe (the “e” indicates that Philipe is in charge of the tech). They scratched their own itch and built LocalUncle to be able to know what’s happening anywhere in the world, right now. (coming soon: The Moon and Mars).

Philip Estrada Reichen CEO & Co-founder

Philip grew up in Mexico and Switzerland and speaks a bunch of different languages. He graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich with a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s in Industrial Engineering. That’s the same university Einstein got his Physics degree from.

Philip has been all over the place during and after college: He has worked in China as Production Engineer for a concealed cistern (fancy word for “toilets”) manufacturer, in NYC as Product Manager for Pixable.com (acquired for $26.5M USD), in Mexico as COO of a biotech company and in Switzerland as CEO of a consulting company. He loves technology, daily running, long walks on the beach and saving children from burning buildings.

At LocalUncle he’s in charge of everything, but responsible for nothing. Seriously, he sometimes tries to do it all, gives up on it and gets back to basics: build an awesome team and make cool stuff together.

Read more about his (professional) life and follow him if you think he’s worthy.

Philipe Fatio CTO & Co-founder

Philipe is a Swiss-Brazilian web-wunderkind who speaks (and codes in) multiple languages. Currently, his favorite two are Portuguese and Ruby. Don’t be surprised if he switches it up to German and PHP just for kicks. He’s been coding and hacking for more than 10 years while simultaneously developing an outstanding eye for design and UI. Prior to co-founding LocalUncle he worked at a Swiss web startup for a couple of years. To stir things up, Philipe is currently pursuing his Mechanical Engineering degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich focusing on Mechatronics.

At LocalUncle he’s in charge of the system architecture, the code, the design, the nerd-talk and the breakthrough, revolutionary product ideas.

Follow him or visit him anytime!

Advisors

Johannes Reck

Tao Tao

Martin Sieber

LocalUncle’s three advisors shot in the first round of seed funding and are helping out whenever help is needed. Usually in the form of rock-solid actions instead of touchy-feely it’ll be alright-talk.

They co-founded a successful e-commerce company to book tours and activities called GetYourGuide and know the ins-and-outs of the consumer web space. Johannes is CEO at GetYourGuide, Tao Tao is in charge of Products and Martin Sieber is a gifted web design astronaut. Together they form the oracle of LocalUncle and are plain awesomeness.