Bellevue-based map-building startup Proxi has big plans after graduating from the Techstars accelerator program in February and raising $1.2 million.
The startup, founded by longtime friends Melinda Haughey and Chelsey Roney, is looking to change the way people explore their surroundings. Using its technology, individuals, businesses and nonprofits can create customized maps to share local destinations with their networks.
"Proxi is going to be the app that people open instead of Google Maps and Yelp," Roney said. "The ways that people navigate using the big-name tools like Google Maps and Yelp is broken. The recommendations that flow to the top of those tools are ad-based. When you go and you search 'restaurants near me,' sure, the restaurant that did the ad might actually have good food, but maybe they don't."
Proxi is pre-revenue right now but plans to make money eventually from businesses paying to feature links or offers and sponsor maps on Proxi's platform. The difference from other services, Roney said, is businesses will only be able to advertise on the platform if a user chooses to feature that business. In other words, businesses won't be able to buy their way into being featured.
Users have taken Proxi's technology, which doesn't require coding knowledge, to make maps for travel guides, trick-or-treat guides, and guides to support Black- and minority-owned businesses. Proxi offers blank maps and templates, and users can control the branding.
Proxi, which used to be called Map Your Idea, began around Halloween in 2020 when Haughey, who also serves as Proxi's CEO, was creating a crowdsourced map of places kids could trick or treat during the Covid-19 pandemic. The map ended up with 2,300 different points and 500,000 views, according to Roney.
Haughey reached out to Roney, now Proxi's COO, because she didn't know of any good crowdsourced map tools made for something like the trick-or-treat map. Proxi launched a few months later.
Roney and Haughey had been friends for about 10 years. Both attended Texas A&M University and did graduate programs at the University of Washington. The two spent about six or seven months building Proxi after its launch before deciding to work on it full time. They applied to the Techstars program and were admitted to the fall 2021 cohort.
Proxi currently has four full-time employees and about five contractors, Roney said, and is looking to have at least 10 full-time employees a year from now. She added that while the company works out of a WeWork space in Bellevue, it will eventually grow into a larger office.
Proxi is looking to stand out from other map-making tools by having broad appeal.
"We're not totally niched down into travel or nonprofits or something," Roney said. "Anyone can come to this site and decide how they'll use the tool to create maps. There are quite a few companies popping up that are in different niches. That's where the power is coming from — we're across verticals."
