Renton-based blockchain and social media startup Peer is looking to supercharge its growth after raising $14 million earlier this month.
Tony Tran, founder and CEO of Peer, said the company will start talks in August to raise a $200 million to $300 million Series A round. Peer is also looking to move out of its 20,000-person alpha test and into a more robust beta test in August.
"At the moment, when we're talking about the app, it's very hard to tell people what it is. We have to show them what it looks like before we can raise that amount," Tran said. "We're presently kind of building up towards that. We're getting together a very strong group of board advisers, really phenomenal people who have been stalwarts in the industry for a long time."
Peer, founded last year, aims to make blockchain more user friendly in the same way the desktop made personal computers more user friendly, Tran said. The network features virtual rooms where users can chat, and allows horizontal and vertical scrolling to see content. Users can toggle among photos, videos and non-fungible tokens.
Tran described the $14 million in funding as a friends and family round. He added that that the company has 86 employees, many of whom are distributed, with only eight based in the Seattle area. Peer has a blockchain team in India and a front-end team in Ukraine. Tran said the company worked to get the Ukrainian team out of the heavily contested fighting in the eastern part of the country.
Although Tran didn't give an estimate on how many employees the company will likely have a year from now, he did say Peer is hiring engineers and designers. He added that the company, which doesn't have office space now, is moving into space in the Southport office campus in Renton, likely within the next two months.
Peer plans to make money from advertising on its platform. Following its recent funding round, Tran said the company plans to ramp up marketing.
"The next step for us is to scale up the app," Tran said. "That's what we're working on at the moment."
