This has already been a big month for us, and we’re just getting started. Developers are already building on the protocol, we’re shipping new websites for XMTP and XMTP Labs, and making more information about the project public.
Hi all! I’m extremely excited to report that we’ve been full steam ahead and are on schedule to release the SDK to developers before the end of the month!
More specifically, we now have XMTP nodes up and running, a basic front end, and are actively sending messages around the playnet (pre-testnet testnet). Next up is bringing in those developers. Now onto the rest of it…
Hello everyone. With 2021 in hindsight, we’re excited to share our progress and outlook for 2022 as we work on delivering our first big milestone in Q1.
tl;dr: Our SDK is going live in Q1 and we want our investors to get a first look at building on top of XMTP, and giving us feedback.
Hello all! We’re trying out a new format for our investor updates, so let us know what you think.
Hello XMTP investors new and also not-as-new-but-not-old. It's with great excitement that we share our September update, which starts with having closed our $20M Series A.
The feedback to the news was great. We had over 900k impressions on Twitter + thousands of inbound messages for recruiting, partnerships, and people wanting to early invest in our future token. Thanks to everyone who helped to promote and share our news, it’s safe to say that people really believe and want to see this idea in the world.
It’s time to build the dream team. If you haven't had an opportunity to yet, read our blog post about the round.
June was an incredibly exciting month for XMTP. Kicking things off, we’ll start with this:
Yes, you read that right. Last week a16z made a pre-emptive offer to lead our Series A with a ~$15M-$20M round, at a $60M post-money valuation, and gave us a term sheet to that effect. After some back-and-forth on terms, we’re excited to report that we signed the term sheet last Friday.
We first met with them in the days that followed signing our first docs for the seed round. They were extremely intrigued with what we were doing, and felt like something like it would be inevitable in the market. Each week we dug in just a bit deeper, which culminated in a partner meeting a week ago. We’re encouraged by their shared enthusiasm for XMTP, and believe they’re the absolute best partner for our Series A. All of this has happened quite quickly, and I wanted to make sure to share our thought process behind doing this now:
All in all we’re stoked to be working with Ali, Chris, Katie, and the rest of the a16z team as we move forward. We’ll keep you all up on how things progress with the process.
Hey team,
We are so stoked to have this crew on board. Considering the speed at which this came together and the people that are behind us, we feel both humbled and amazed. We are so fired up to build this company and protocol with you.
We wanted to share a few important things and how we could use your help:
Job descriptions are here: careers.xmtp.com
Here are the key roles (4-5) we are looking to hire, all of which can be senior:
We’re just getting started and could really use your help behind the scenes with hiring since we’re not going to make a public statement.
Also it’s just a suggestion but here’s maybe an idea of some things you could say when talking to people about this, to ensure we keep things under wraps for now:
“We just invested in XMTP and they’re building a messaging protocol for web3 and crypto networks.”
“It was started by experienced founders and a team that’s built startups in the crypto and messaging space for longer than a decade. They’ve also got a syndicate of some great investors with deep strategic ties throughout the space.”
Last note, I wanted to make sure everyone is aware that I brought on a co-founder,Shane Mac, who I’ve known and worked with for the last 10 years, and also lived next to each other in SF for a long time. Shane’s first startup, Gist.com (a social CRM) was acquired by BlackBerry in 2009 after which he worked on their Messenger product (BBM). His last startup, Assist, was the leading business messaging and bot platform that built on top of Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Apple Business Chat, and other major messaging platforms and was acquired in 2019 by Conversocial. He brings tons of leadership, operational, recruiting, sales, and messaging infrastructure background and I’m so stoked to have him on board.
Outside of the immediate ask I’d love to invite you to join our investor Telegram. Just click and you’ll be able to join:
Thanks again for your support, we’re so excited to work with you.
P.S. Just so everyone is aware of everyone else, here is the amazing syndicate who we are lucky enough to have backing and supporting us with this round. Leads are in bold. Some participated directly, many via a custom AngelList Rollup Vehicle: