Matt Redler began his search for funding in an unusual way: through a direct message on Twitter.
After launching his company Panther in June, Redler messaged Calanthia Mei, the head of strategy at Silicon Valley startup Fast, with a simple statement.
"I said I heard she was an unbelievably helpful angel investor and that I would love her to be a part of our journey regardless of check size — she could give us $10, I just wanted her to be involved," Redler said. "And that turned into a whole network, if you will."
Redler's startup Panther, which simplifies remote global hiring, has raised $1.7 million across two pre-seed rounds from Silicon Valley executives including from Shutterstock, SpaceX, Instacart and more.
They're big gets for anyone, let alone a company that launched in June after Redler's previous startup shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic. But Redler wanted the large names to create a jumping-off point for not only future funding rounds, but to build current credentials.
"When you're a startup you only have so many resources; when you have this [network of investors] it helps everything else," he said. "It impresses new people, new customers ... there is a network effect here."
The lead investors on the round are Soma Capital, which own the Sacramento Kings, Garage VC and Adapt VC. Angel investors include:
• Calanthia Mei head of strategy at Fast and Kyle Tibbitts, head of marketing at Fast
• Sri Batchu, head of ads, Instacart
• Sung Ho Choi, founder of FuboTV
• Jon Oringer, founder of Shutterstuck
• Craig Hunter, who was among the first 50 employees at Uber
• Julia DeWahl, Starlink Global Operations at SpaceX
• Brian Luerssen and Peter Piekarczyk, co-founders of Draftbit
Panther is now eyeing a $5 million seed round raise, with that amount being on the "conservative" edge according to Redler. The current funds will be used to help hire four new employees, bringing the total number to 10 team members.
"This gets us up and running with the core team to build a plug-and-play way to hire globally," Redler said. "It's such a complicated space and there are so many tools to build, to make every aspect of remote hiring as seamless as possible. This isn’t even chapter one."
