A year after the acquisition of the startup he founded, Durham entrepreneur Anil Chawla has a new gig in a boardroom.
Chawla – who founded ArchiveSocial, now part of Optimere – has invested nearly $100,000 in Raleigh-based government technology firm PublicInput. And with the investment comes a board seat, the company said.
Chawla is regarded by many to be a homegrown Triangle success story, having left a stable job at IBM (NYSE: IBM) to take a chance on his concept. Within a few years, the company had 65 employees and a $53 million growth equity deal that cashed out early backers in 2019.
Jay Dawkins, CEO of PublicInput, is hoping the success continues with Chawla's involvement in his company.
Dawkins said the addition of Chawla makes perfect sense. PublicInput, which counts both Raleigh and Charlotte as customers, got started in 2014, just a few years after ArchiveSocial. And the two worked in the same sector.
“He’s kind of a legend in his own right in the gov-tech space,” Dawkins said.
PublicInput’s primary backer is Growth Street Partners, which led its $6.1 million round in 2021.
Chawla’s latest equity infusion is more about getting his teeth in the game – the ability to participate as a shareholder – than a capital raise, Dawkins said. Chawla will have voting power on the board as a minority shareholder.
Chawla told Triangle Business Journal he had known PublicInput for a long time and had many conversations with its founders over the years.
With its recent growth, “It became clear that it’s time to accelerate the company’s go-to-market.” When Dawkins reached out with the board opportunity, Chawla leapt at the chance to participate in yet another scale-up, and says he’s “all in on the mission.”
In the meantime, it’s been an exciting year for PublicInput, Dawkins said. The company is now at 35 people.
“We’re really leaning in on this idea that state and local governments really don’t have a good system of recording, of managing their interactions with the public,” Dawkins said.
The idea for PublicInput started with surveys. But today, the company helps governments manage all interactions with the public, from surveys to emails, texts, phone calls and even voicemail transcriptions.
“Ultimately we’re all about providing more ways for the public to participate, so that we hear from more people,” he said. “There’s this idea that typically the government only hears from a few of the loudest voices. By providing more ways for more people to get involved, you hear from a broader set of voices and that can change the dynamic of the conversation.”
Dawkins, the son of a city councilman in Fayetteville, grew up in local government, seeing firsthand how the process works.
He cofounded the company as Cityzen alongside Graham Stone. It was one of the first graduates of ThinkHouse, an entrepreneurship residency program funded by the backers of Raleigh Founded that used to be based at a house in Boylan Heights.
Since 2017, the firm has done business as PublicInput.
PublicInput is hiring selectively, specifically in product management, business development and sales.