Kissimmee-based tech startup Yac Media Inc. has gained some notable investors in the height of the pandemic, including business communication platform Slack (NYSE: WORK).
"Initially we got introduced via Linkedin last summer, and we thought it was spam or something," co-founder Jordan Walker told the Business Journal. "They gave us an initial investment of $500,000 and said they'd been watching us and were interested in Yac for a while."
All of the due diligence for the investment was conducted over a series of voice messages via Yac, Walker said.
The tech startup, co-founded by Jordan Walker and Hunter McKinley, also has closed a $7.5 million Series A funding round led by GGV Capital with additional investment from the Slack Fund of $1 million in January 2021.
Walker and McKinley previously discussed the genesis of Yac as a voice collaboration tool somewhere between a conference call and a walkie-talkie in an interview with the Business Journal in 2019.
Since then, the now Slack-integrated app has grown about 500%, Walker said.
Yac works similarly to Slack, Walker said, but sends voice messages and automatic transcriptions to participants. Users can also slow down the audio or speed it up, depending on how quickly they want to listen to it, and send screen shares as well.
"We've had a lot of positive response from teams and users saying it's saving them 20 hours a week of unnecessary, miscellaneous scheduling and everything else that happens with calls," he said.
There's a free version of the app, and a paid subscription, also similar to Slack. Users have the opportunity to pay monthly, which is $5 per month per user.
"The crazy user growth we had during Covid-19 and everything related to it – I think that's why it was really attractive to a lot of investors," Walker said.
Walker will join the board of The PS27 Foundation, a nonprofit that provides leadership training and programs for entrepreneurs, and looks forward to helping young entrepreneurs through his own experience.
"(I'll be able to talk) about things like what the venture capital landscape looks like here, here's what folks are looking for or here's what deals are really hot," he said. "Or what markets are really interesting."
He said bridging the gap between places like Silicon Valley and Florida is one of his main goals.
The majority of Yac's investors are remote, he said, including some in Florida, Texas, New York and California. Other investors include Active Capital and Betaworks Ventures.
Angel investors include Anthony Pompliano, Arlan Hamilton, Ankur Nagpal (the founder of Teachable) and Sahil Lavingia (the founder of Gumroad).
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