It’s 2025, however enterprise playing cards are nonetheless in vogue — simply go to any convention or trade expo and also you’ll find yourself with a pile that’s likely to be discarded sooner than later. However as smartphones have change into our repositories of knowledge and contacts, individuals are understandably eager to check out digital alternate options to enterprise playing cards.
Blinq, a startup out of Melbourne, guess that development would take off when it started off as a hobby project in 2017, providing a digital enterprise card app with a QR-code widget. At present, the corporate is making off with a bag of gold: It now has greater than 2.5 million customers — each particular person clients and throughout 500,000 corporations within the U.S., Canada, the U.Okay. and Australia.
Off the again of that progress, the startup has now raised a $25 million Collection A funding spherical led by Touring Capital. Returning backers Blackbird Ventures and Sq. Peg Capital additionally participated within the spherical, as did new investor HubSpot Ventures.
“[The Blinq’s QR] was a easy, private solution to share who you might be, and it labored nicely between iPhone customers. However it wasn’t till late 2019 when most Android gadgets caught up on QR scanning, and adoption began to develop,” Jerrod Webb, CEO and founding father of Blinq, instructed TechCrunch. “Then got here COVID — QR codes went mainstream, in-person conferences turned extra intentional, and Blinq’s concentrate on making these moments seamless and memorable began to take off.”
The startup has taken the B2C2B route ever since. The app lets customers create a number of personalized digital enterprise playing cards for various wants and join with contacts utilizing them. The app may routinely seize particulars and sync them with CRM methods similar to HubSpot or Salesforce by utilizing QR codes, e-mail signatures, NFCs, quick hyperlinks, or video name backgrounds.
Blinq is utilized by people, small companies, and world enterprises, and 80% of its buyer base is positioned within the U.S., Webb stated. Its staff has scaled from 5 workers based mostly in Melbourne to 67 throughout Sydney, Melbourne, New York, and San Francisco, supporting its product improvement and go-to-market efforts.
“Each time somebody makes use of Blinq, they’re introducing it to somebody new. And additional, we see extra frequent utilization by lively customers the longer they’re on the platform,” Webb stated. “That inbuilt virality drives natural progress and retains our buyer acquisition prices low. On the enterprise facet, corporations pay per seat. As extra workers undertake the product, groups develop organically, creating growth income over time.”
Techcrunch occasion
Berkeley, CA
|
June 5
Blinq competes with a number of corporations offering related digital enterprise card providers, together with Mobilo, Popl, Wave, and Wix. In fact, the app additionally has to deal with social networking platforms like LinkedIn, touchdown pages, and providers like Linketree.
However Webb feels Blink is extra suited to constructing relationships, and supplies customers extra methods to observe up and interact with new contacts.
Webb sees digital enterprise playing cards as extra than simply an endpoint. “They’re our wedge. As a result of when you’re the trusted software in the mean time a relationship begins, you earn the suitable to form what follows. We’re targeted on giving folks the whole lot they should flip first impressions into actual momentum — from dynamic, context-rich profiles to sensible methods to remain prime of thoughts. Meaning increasing into new markets, deepening our presence with companies and enterprises, and persevering with to evolve how folks join in a world that’s altering quick.”
