Now that Birmingham-based startup Linq has secured a roughly $2 million round of funding, its CEO has plans for growth.
The latest funding round, which was supported by Linq's existing investors and comes a little more than a year after the company closed a $2.5 million seed round in March 2022, will go toward focusing on customers.
"Really, this money was to help us double down on customers, our enterprise customers in the real world using Linq to interface with their customers, which we believe, in the face of AI and in the face of the pandemic is more important than ever," Linq CEO Elliott Potter said. "Being able to tell a story to your customers, Linq is a tool that helps you do that. And then more practically, the value to the business is that we help you capture data and integrate it into your systems. So really, we're trying to change the way businesses engage and communicate with their customers. It just starts with the digital business card."
The funds will also help Linq expand its current offerings, build out the team and attack new markets.
Potter said the company plans to increase the team size by 25% and double headcount from beginning of 2022 to about 35. The company is hiring product designers, senior software engineering professionals, salespeople and a growth marketer who can write code but also understand sales tactics.
"For us, it's not about it's not about headcount growth as much as it is revenue growth," Potter said. "Because as a startup, you're forced to do a lot with a little, and we've always operated pretty scrappily. Headcount growth is important to us, but we also have systems and people here that can scale the growth motion we've had in place for a while. So we're excited about growing the team, but more excited about growing our efficiency."
Moving forward, Potter said the biggest challenge is making sure the world is ready for Linq's technology.
"We kind of exist to enable non-technical people to automate and augment their business relationships and we have to be careful that we're not introducing tech that's hard to understand or too far-fetched to that audience," he added. "But then on the flip side of that, the big opportunity is literally everyone who works can use our technology. Everyone who interfaces with a customer or a potential customer can use our technology."
Linq started out as a digital business card that debuted at Sloss Tech in 2019. From there, it grew to serving individuals and consumers. The company saw significant growth in 2020, with a huge surge in demand for its QR code technology and applications in retail and other business spaces.
The initial seed round was led by Mucker Capital, a California-based company that invests in seed and pre-seed stage companies outside of Silicon Valley. The round had participation from the Alabama Futures Fund, Shipt and Landing founder Bill Smith, among other investors from the metro area and the West Coast.
The most recent round was led by Alabama Futures Fund.
