Where to watch fireworks on the Delaware? See Curalate's interactive map

Philly tech firm Curalate helps hundreds of brands from Urban Outfitters to Aldo shoes connect with online shoppers.

Now Curalate is using the same technology to help people find a spot to watch the Delaware River fireworks on July 4.

The 170-employee company, with headquarters at 2401 Walnut St., has posted an online map with tagged locations enabling viewers to sample various vantage points. Viewers can drag their cursor across the map, moving the image to display different angles from which to watch the fireworks display — from north of the Ben Franklin Bridge, or south of it, to various points in Center City.

Each location links to an address: Penn Treaty Park, Spruce Street Harbor Park, Penn's Landing, Independence Seaport Museum and 15 others. There also will be fireworks on the Ben Franklin Parkway on July 4, but the interactive map does not list the locations to watch those.

Jared Shelly, Curalate's head of content, who posted the map on his blog, said that "we were certainly excited to scope out the best places for fireworks. Then we thought, why not have a tool to do it?"

Retailers can use Curalate's technology to approximate the in-store experience for web shoppers, giving them the ability to turn in all directions and look around at the wares for sale. Its main e-commerce platform lets a person see a product's image on Instagram and click through to buy it, without having to find the item on a brand's online catalog.

For the fireworks, even if a person isn't interested in colorful bursts, the map lets a person click and drag to look at the city from 226 feet in the air.

The images were taken by a drone, controlled by the company's summer intern and University of Pennsylvania student Christopher Kao, who also has taken photos of the Comcast Corp.'s new tower.

The Curalate interactive map includes the top of One Liberty Place, to watch the city's fireworks on July 4.

Curalate has been scaling similar heights. In February 2016, it reported receiving a $27.5 million investment from past investors, including New Enterprise Associates, the largest U.S. venture capital outfit, based in Silicon Valley, and Josh Kopelman's Philadelphia-based FirstRound Capital, the biggest VC based on the East Coast. (Kopelman chairs the board of Philadelphia Media Network, which operates the Inquirer, the Daily News, and Philly.com.) The money came on top of the $40 million that those backers have made since 2012.

The cash infusion helped the company expand its tech, sales, marketing, and management staff. The company runs satellite offices in New York and Seattle and opened an office in London in May.

In February,  Curalate announced a new partnership with social media giant Pinterest, enabling its 150 million monthly browsers to instantly "click through" —  moving to the precise sale web pages where the items are featured — and then quickly close the deal.

Curalate tagged 19 places to watch the Delaware River fireworks: