Alfonso Cobo

Last updated
Alfonso Cobo
Born1992 (age 3334)
OccupationBusinessman
Known for Unfold

Alfonso Cobo (born 1992, Canary Islands, Spain [1] ) is a Spanish businessman. He is best known as the founder of Unfold, which was acquired by Squarespace in 2019. [2]

Contents

Early life

Alfonso was born in the Canary Islands, Spain and spent much of his childhood in Madrid before moving to the United Kingdom at 17. [3]

Career

As a university student, Cobo studied design and architecture. [4] After working as an architectural designer in London, [5] Cobo received a scholarship to Parsons School of Design and moved to New York. [3] Cobo has a master's degree in strategic design and management from Parsons School of Design and a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Brighton.[ citation needed ]

In 2017, Cobo recognized there was no software or app that could create a portfolio of his work on an iPad. Later that year, he launched his portfolio layout app, the first one to exist for iPad. [6]

Cobo founded Unfold in 2018 and was later joined by Andy McCune as a co-founder. [6] Unfold, a mobile application that allows users to create Instagram Stories posts using a variety of templates and other tools. [4] [7] In 2019, Unfold was acquired by Squarespace. By then, it had 16 million users. In 2023, Unfold had over 60 million downloads, and over 1 billion stories were created using it. [8] [1] [9] In 2020, Cobo launched Bio Sites with Squarespace, a tool that allows users to share relevant links. [10]

Cobo received a Gaingels award in 2023. [3] He also launched Hypelist, a social mobile application allowing for the curation of a recommended products list, in 2023. [11] [12]

Personal life

As of 2019, Cobo lives in New York City. [5] He is gay. [13]

References

  1. 1 2 "This Gay Tech Founder Is Giving Back to the LGBTQ Community". www.advocate.com.
  2. "How to Make Passive Income in the Creator Economy". Entrepreneur. March 28, 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "Alfonso Cobo - Gaingels". gaingels.com.
  4. 1 2 "Unfold". Forbes.
  5. 1 2 "Alfonso Cobo". May 25, 2019.
  6. 1 2 Im, Jimmy (October 3, 2018). "How these 20-somethings brought in over $1 million in a year with an Instagram-friendly app". CNBC.
  7. Shaul, Brandy (February 27, 2019). "Unfold Partnered With Tommy Hilfiger to Launch Instagram Stories Templates". www.adweek.com.
  8. "Alfonso Cobo on Creating Social Media's Most Downloaded and Recognized Storytelling App, Unfold". BOND OFFICIAL | Modern Men. Modern Stories. December 26, 2019.
  9. "Enhance Your Social Media Stories with Unfold". Squarespace.
  10. Ha, Anthony (December 18, 2020). "Unfold launches lightweight, link-centric profiles called Bio Sites".
  11. Rivera, Abraham (2023-12-27). "¿Por qué nos obsesionan las listas? Alfonso Cobo, el español que creó Unfold, lanza una 'app' para compartir recomendaciones". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  12. "Facilidades para tu día a día". Avenue Illustrated (in Spanish). 2023-12-28. Retrieved 2026-01-14.
  13. Shea, Ryan (2018-11-20). "EXCLUSIVE: Openly Gay CEO Alfonso Cobo Discusses Making Forbes' 30 Under 30 List". Instinct Magazine. Retrieved 2025-12-16.