A Canadian tech company that just closed a six-figure deal is making the move to Tampa Bay.
Spontivly, which announced the pre-seed round on Monday, did not disclose further financial details.
The company is in the process of moving from Alberta, Canada to St. Petersburg, after considering cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles.
"We had a conversation with Richard [Munassi, from the Tampa Bay Wave], who had kept an eye on us for a long time," Anthony Nagendraraj, Spontivly's CEO said. "And he said, 'What about Tampa?' We hadn’t thought about it, but then we came there and saw how the community was growing."
While the company is in the process of becoming a full-time Floridian, its name may already sound familiar. They were chosen as part of the Tampa Bay Wave's TechDiversity cohort in 2021, and have joined startup hub Embarc Collective. It's also been tapped as a semifinalist in the upcoming Startup of the Year conference, which will bring roughly 80 startups from across the globe to Tampa to pitch in front of accredited investors.
"We saw the potential and how much Tampa has already grown," said Marissa Huggins, co-founder and head of product. "We like to be somewhere early and invest before it's really taken off. There is a big opportunity to grow alongside the Tampa Bay tech scene."
Spontivly is a SaaS company that allows organizations to gain insights on their community. It was launched in 2019, initially as a way to connect international students on their college campus.
"Since it's a new emerging trend and topic, there are not a lot of resources people can learn or turn to," Huggins said. "So often, you turn to someone who has done it before, and that number is few and far between."
The company has now morphed into offering real-time analytics for a company's data and combines the necessary tools into one platform.
"In essence, everyone is building a community," Nagendraraj said, using Peloton and Salesforce as examples. "But it's so hard to manage; there are zero insights, and that's where we come in."
The company has eight employees, projecting to hit 65 in the next three years. The current funding will be used to help that growth, in both personnel and technology. The co-founders have their sites set on a seed round in the next six months.
"The pandemic magnified the problem when everything went online — you went from a little visibility to zero visibility," Nagendraraj said. "And organizations realized the way we do business completely changed. People don't just buy a product anymore."
