Israeli video-messaging startup Glide has raised an $8 million round of “bridge financing,” which was structured as convertible debt, the company’s CEO Ari Roisman told "Business Insider." The investment came from a “syndicate of new strategic investors” with participation from all Series B investors - Menlo Ventures, Marker LLC, and Two Sigma Ventures.
The Jerusalem-based startup also recently laid off 25% of employees in order to focus on smartwatches, "Business Insider" adds.
Glide was founded in 2012 by Roisman, Jonathan Caras and Adam Korbl and has raised $36.5 million to date, including the latest financing. In 2013, the company launched the Glide app in 2013, which allows users to quickly send short video messages to friends, in a similar way to which text messages work.
The free app has been downloaded “tens of millions” of times, resulting in “billions of messages” being sent.
Roisman told "Business Insider," "As we increase focus and investment on the emerging smartwatch ecosystem and seek to keep operations lean, we decided to part ways with some friends and colleagues who did not entirely align with our strategy moving forward. We will continue to develop our visual messaging app and support our millions of users, yet we’re also hard at work on an exciting new project for smartwatches that we plan to unveil later this summer."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 25, 2016
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