Joyride, the company that wants to make drive-time more fun and interesting, is pioneering a first-of-its-kind social driving experience through hands-free usage of rich mobile applications while driving. Joyride is developing the only voice-activated solution that gives drivers a safe, simple and totally hands-free way to use mobile apps, opening up a new world of social connections - from music to literature to games - without taking their hands off the steering wheel or eyes away from the road. By taking previously land-locked social applications and making them available through simple voice commands, Joyride intends to create an engaging social driving experience - more convenient and fun than today's radio, phone or keyboard - and infinitely less dangerous.

Joyride was co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Jeff Chen and James Zhang, whose voice-activated media app Skyvi has garnered over 5 million downloads and remains the leading voice app for Android. Joyride also today announced that it has received $1 million in seed funding from top Venture Capitalists, including Freestyle Capital and Cowboy Ventures, as well as prominent angel investor Seth Goldstein, also serving as Joyride Executive Chairman of the Board. The initial investment will be used for hiring purposes to build out the engineering team.

"There are millions of commuters on the road in the U.S., and right now they're stuck with tedious and boring commutes," said Jeff Chen, co-founder and CEO, Joyride. "Our goal is to totally transform that reality by giving people a safe, affordable and easy way to enjoy their smartphone and have more fun during their commute."

"As an investor and frequent commuter, I am excited by the need being met by Joyride and the tremendous promise of its hands-free platform," said Josh Felser, co-founder, Freestyle Capital. "Jeff and James have taken their proven expertise with Skyvi and innovated an entirely new solution that fills a hole in the huge commuter market, while meeting an ever-increasing desire for content consumption."

"Like life in 'The Jetsons,' Joyride lets commuters simply say what they want using only their voices - delivering a vision for the future by revolutionizing how people use mobile applications in cars," said Seth Goldstein, Joyride investor and executive chairman of the board. "The social usages for this technology are vast - limited only by our imaginations - and the audience just as large."

Joyride - Making Today's Land-Locked Social Apps Safely Available While Driving
Joyride is being developed to solve the need of today's social generation to be continuously connected to an ever-increasing number of online networks and address the problem of dangerous, hands-based solutions currently being used in cars. Joyride will offer a solution for both problems by delivering a voice-activated platform that lets people easily - and safely - satisfy their growing social connectivity desires while they're driving.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans spend 45 billion hours per year commuting, and the average one-way daily commute is more than 25 minutes. Further, in this large market, statistics still show that the vast majority of commuters drive alone. Joyride eliminates boring commutes by letting these drivers enjoy safe, hands-free mobile applications through an easy-to-use voice-activated solution. All people need to use Joyride is a smartphone and Bluetooth or AUX Jack cable in their car, making it an affordable solution that can be easily used immediately by the average commuter.

Joyride will give commuters an all-in-one social driving experience, opening up a myriad of hands-free info- and entertainment choices on the web, with possibilities including:

Music;
Audio literature;
Educational apps; and
Trivia and other games.

By being truly hands-free, Joyride will also resolve the safety issues surrounding Internet usage while driving, leading the next evolution of mobile apps in the car.

About Joyride
Based in San Francisco, Joyride, the company that wants to make drive-time more fun and interesting, is pioneering a first-of-its-kind social driving experience through hands-free usage of rich mobile applications while driving. Joyride is developing a voice-activated solution that lets people make social connections through simple, safe hands-free mobile apps - ranging from music to literature to games - without taking their hands off the steering wheel or eyes away from the road and turning the average commute into a uniquely social drive-time experience.

Joyride was co-founded by Jeff Chen and James Zhang, whose voice-activated social media app Skyvi has so far garnered over 5 million downloads and remains the leading voice app for Android. Chen and Zhang have more than five years of experience working together creating and building innovative technologies and have co-founded multiple startup companies, including CLZ Concepts (acquired by Zynga), and Aftershock Innovations. For more information about Joyride, go to getjoyride.com.