Text messaging platform Yourco lands $2M in seed funding
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Indianapolis-based software startup Yourco has closed on a $2 million round of seed funding that the company’s CEO says will help fuel its growth ambitions.
Indianapolis-based Ground Game Ventures led the round. In connection with the investment, Grand Game Ventures Managing Partner Aman Brar is joining Yourco’s board of directors.
Other investors were Allos Ventures, which has offices in both Indianapolis and Cincinnati; Indianapolis-based Start Something Ventures and Elevate Ventures; and the Bloomington-based Flywheel Fund. The round closed on Aug. 25, although Yourco did not publicly announce it until Oct. 24.
Yourco’s co-founder and CEO, Brodie Meyer, said the company wasn’t necessarily looking to secure outside funding, but it found the right partner and decided that seed capital could help Yourco grow more quickly.
“It’s truly just a growth accelerant,” Meyer said of the investment.
The startup, launched in 2021, offers a text-messaging based platform that employers can use to communicate with what Yourco calls “non-desk” employees—people who don’t work in an office setting and might not even have a work-related email account.
An employer, for instance, could use the platform to share company announcements, emergency alerts or benefits information with employees. Workers could use it to get in touch with their supervisors or their human resources department. The platform also includes a translation feature so that employers can more easily communicate with workers for whom English is not their first language.
The platform is SMS-based, which means communications do not count toward a user’s data usage—an important feature for workers who might have limited data plans on their smartphones. SMS, which stands for short message service, allows users to send and receive text messages of up to 160 characters.
Yourco has hundreds of customers across the U.S. and Canada, Meyer said, and they include companies of all sizes in a variety of industries, including health care, construction, manufacturing and warehousing, transportation and agriculture.
Customers include the Indianapolis Airport Authority; suburban Chicago-based wholesale baker Clyde’s Donuts; and paint- and coatings-maker Sherwin Williams.
Earlier this year, Yourco was selected as one of 40 companies worldwide—and the only one from Indiana—to participate in a pitch contest at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. Yourco was not a winner, Meyer said, but the experience allowed Yourco to make valuable connections with investors and other startups.
Meyer launched Yourco with his brother, Benjamin Meyer, in March 2021. The two originally developed the platform for their family’s commercial printing business, M&G Graphics in Chicago. Based on the success M&G had using the technology to communicate with its plant floor employees, the brothers decided to build a business around the platform.
The company now has a staff of six, including employees and contract workers.
Armed with its seed funding, Brodie Meyer said, Yourco plans to hire engineering and marketing staff to help the company grow.
Because non-desk employees make up a majority of the workforce, he said, and because Yourco’s platform could be useful to companies of any size, he said the company sees huge growth potential ahead. “It’s such a large market that we’re really trying to get after it.”
Brodie Meyer is a 2018 Butler University graduate, and he and his brother were both living in Indianapolis when they launched Yourco. They have since moved back to the Chicago suburbs, but travel back here regularly. Yourco remains based here.
“We’re keeping it in Indy,” Brodie Meyer said of Yourco. “We just love it there. It’s just been a very supportive community.”