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 options to enterprise playing cards.
Blinq, a startup out of Melbourne, wager that development would take off when it began off as a passion challenge in 2017, providing a digital enterprise card app with a QR-code widget. Right this moment, the corporate is making off with a bag of gold: It now has greater than 2.5 million customers — each particular person prospects and throughout 500,000 firms within the U.S., Canada, the U.Ok. 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 technique to share who you might be, and it labored properly between iPhone customers. But it surely wasn’t till late 2019 when most Android units caught up on QR scanning, and adoption began to develop,” Jerrod Webb, CEO and founding father of Blinq, advised TechCrunch. “Then got here COVID — QR codes went mainstream, in-person conferences grew to become 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 also robotically seize particulars and sync them with CRM techniques corresponding to HubSpot or Salesforce by utilizing QR codes, e-mail signatures, NFCs, brief hyperlinks, or video name backgrounds.
Blinq is utilized by people, small companies, and international enterprises, and 80% of its buyer base is positioned within the U.S., Webb stated. Its crew has scaled from 5 staff primarily based 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 aspect, firms pay per seat. As extra staff undertake the product, groups develop organically, creating enlargement income over time.”
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Blinq competes with a number of firms offering related digital enterprise card companies, together with Mobilo, Popl, Wave, and Wix. In fact, the app additionally has to deal with social networking platforms like LinkedIn, touchdown pages, and companies like Linketree.
However Webb feels Blink is extra suited to constructing relationships, and offers customers extra methods to comply with 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 if you end up the trusted software in the intervening time a relationship begins, you earn the fitting to form what follows. We’re centered on giving individuals every part they should flip first impressions into actual momentum — from dynamic, context-rich profiles to good methods to remain prime of thoughts. Which means increasing into new markets, deepening our presence with companies and enterprises, and persevering with to evolve how individuals join in a world that’s altering quick.”