HiHello Inc., the digital business card platform for individuals and businesses, announced a $7.5 million Series A round of funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from Lux Capital and existing investor August Capital. Additional investors include Manu Kumar (Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of HiHello), the co-founders of Lyft, Everlaw, Auth0, Path/June, and Military.com, and product leaders from LinkedIn and Facebook.
HiHello is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that helps people strengthen their relationships and amplify the power of their network. With the high demand for enterprise digital business cards, this new funding will enable HiHello to continue growing its team and expanding its business platform to support companies of all sizes, the company said in its statement.
“HiHello is the first company to develop a digital business card platform that is truly focused on the end-user experience,” said Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group. “Physical business cards are outdated and difficult to manage, especially for enterprise companies. We’ve seen exciting growth with HiHello’s digital business cards—companies are realizing how powerful virtual cards are when it comes to networking.”
Founded in 2018, HiHello previously announced a $2.5 million round of seed funding in February 2019, led by August Capital, K9 Ventures, and TenOneTen Ventures. HiHello has seen impressive growth—with users spanning across 147 countries, over 1.5 million HiHello digital business cards have been received in the past year alone.
“While HiHello started as a free app, we had people wanting to pay us for premium features,” said Kumar. “Companies are now realizing that they can use a software solution to manage their business cards, networking, and contact management needs, which is more sustainable and beneficial than physical cards.”
Kumar is an experienced founder, having co-founded multiple startups including CardMunch (acquired by LinkedIn), and Carta (now valued at over $6.9 billion). He also manages K9 Ventures, a successful pre-seed venture capital fund. K9 has been an early investor in companies like Lyft, Twilio, and Auth0, which was recently acquired by Okta.
As part of the new financing round, HiHello is also adding two new members to its Board of Directors: Lindel Eakman from Foundry Group, and Eugenio Pace, co-founder of Auth0.
