Data startup Momento doesn't need an office to get work done.
The company, which raised a $15 million Series A round Thursday, has embraced remote work since its founding in 2021. With co-founder and CEO Khawaja Shams, along with much of the engineering staff, based in the Portland area and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Daniela Miao based in the Seattle area, the team sometimes meets in the middle, in Centralia.
"The Centralia public library is a little hidden gem. They have a meeting room that they offer for free. It's a quite charming town," Shams said. "It's just really gratifying to be in the middle of a library to work on some of this stuff. It sets the tone and our culture really well instead of just fancy off-site locations."
See also: How Momento's CEO came to put roots down in Portland
Momento's technology helps deliver data to end devices faster, with uses such as helping someone's phone find pictures or sports score updates faster. The company's software is aimed at developers, helping them to build better experiences. Momento assists with caching, or storing copies of data in a temporary spot to access the data faster. It also helps enable low-latency messaging. Customers include Paramount and Taco Bell.
Shams said Momento has a little over 30 employees, about half of whom are based in the Seattle area. He added that the company wants to be judicious with its money and will likely add about five to eight employees over the next year. Momento also plans use the funding to add services.
The company doesn't have permanent office space. In addition to meeting in Centralia, Momento will occasionally meet in coworking spaces or even Airbnbs, Shams said. He added that the company might need a permanent office once it hits about 50 employees, but for now Momento is content working mostly remote.
Bain Capital Ventures led the Series A round, while The General Partnership and multiple individual investors participated. Bain Capital Ventures has invested in DocuSign and LinkedIn.
Miao spent about two years at IBM and about three years at Amazon Web Services, according to her LinkedIn page. Shams, meanwhile, spent more than seven years at NASA and more than seven years at AWS.
"I started my career working at NASA building cameras for the Mars rovers," Shams said. "I'm very impatient, so I decided to go into software because you get instant gratification if you're building software."
