It has been 10 years since Jack Dorsey officially launched Twitter with the tweet “”just setting up my twttr”. Over the last decade, twitter has become a haven for making news even more ‘public’, and one can find a ton of information on startups, including funding rounds, and founder details and perspectives. (Spoiler Alert: We use it for our research too :)!)
With this thought, and to commemorate the last decade of Twitter, we look at the tweets of initial fundraising rounds of a few companies which have now grown to be part of the illusive Unicorn list.
- Uber
On October 2010, Uber, raised its Angel round from First Round Capital, LowerCase Capital and “ swath of amazing Angels”. The news was leaked a bit early, so Uber decided to make the announcement official on twitter through this tweet.
It’s out, we’re funded. – So, it looks like the news about our funding leaked a bit early
To confirm, we… http://tumblr.com/x8ilulk0x
— Uber (@Uber) October 15, 2010
To confirm, we… http://tumblr.com/x8ilulk0xThe Tumblr link led to the following message:
- Airbnb
It’s also been 6 years since Vacation Homes Rental giant Airbnb announced its Series A raise of $7.2M from Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners. In this case, Sequoia Capital beat Airbnb to the first tweet on the announcement:
Just Announced: @Airbnb Raises $7.2M Series A and Releases iPhone App http://bit.ly/9BH1nW
— Sequoia Capital (@sequoia) November 10, 2010
Airbnb followed this up with its own tweet, along with one marking the launch of its iPhone App:
Airbnb is proud to have @sequoia_capital as our business partners as we announce our $7.2M Series A funding today http://bit.ly/dpVacP
— Airbnb (@Airbnb) November 11, 2010
Airbnb is proud to have @sequoia_capital as our business partners as we announce our $7.2M Series A funding today http://bit.ly/dpVacP
— Airbnb (@Airbnb) November 11, 2010
- OlaCabs
Here’s is Ola’s tweet marking the raise of its Angel Round.
Mumbai Based Olacabs Raises Angel Investment http://t.co/yayib6z
— Ola (@Olacabs) April 21, 2011
- EverNote
Evernote’s raised an initial $4.5M Round in January 2009, which has been captured in this tweet.
HUGE NEWS: Evernote closes $4.5M round of funding http://twurl.nl/g0nicb
— evernote (@evernote) January 8, 2009
- Nutanix
In April 2011, Nutanix raised a $13.2M Series A from Lightspeed Venture Partner and, Blumberg Capital. Here is what the company tweeted, with a link to their news announcement.
Nutanix Announces $13.2 Million in Series A Funding – http://www.nutanix.com/press_release_article.html
— Nutanix Inc. (@nutanix) April 19, 2011
- Domo
Domo went all out when they announced its $10M Angel Funding Round, with three tweets on the announcement:
#JoshJames, Former CEO Omniture, Raises $10 Million in Angel Funding from Industry Visionaries http://bit.ly/j0Chxq
— Domo (@Domotalk) May 24, 2011
Busy day at #Corda yesterday! #JoshJames Raises $10 Million Angel Round from Industry Visionaries http://bit.ly/iZ6sqQ @BusinessWire
— Domo (@Domotalk) May 20, 2011
Josh James Raises $10million Angel Round. http://bit.ly/mcsuVR #Corda #BI #datavisualization
— Domo (@Domotalk) May 19, 2011
- Medallia
Palo Alto based Customer Experience Management SaaS Company,Medallia raise of $35M from Sequoia Capital was captured through this tweet:
Proud to announce @Sequoia_Capital funding. Check out the press release http://t.co/9wEDonk8 and TechCrunch coverage http://t.co/ybJO8oPc
— Medallia (@Medallia) September 26, 2012
- Actfio
In the latter part of July 2010, Copy data virtualization company Actifio raised one of its first funding rounds, in the form of a $8M Series A raise from North Bridge Venture Partners and Greylock Partners.
Actifio Secures $8 Million in Series A Funding to Deliver Dynamic Data Management Virtualization Solutions to Market http://bit.ly/a9sVLE
— Actifio (@actifio) July 21, 2010
- Twilio
Twilio received its first round of seed funding in March 2009, from Mitch Kapor, The Founders Fund, Dave McClure, David G. Cohen, Chris Sacca, Manu Kumar, and Jeff Fluhr. In a set of two tweets, Twilio not only makes the announcement, but also gives a Twitter shout-out to its investors.
Twilio’s Funding Announcement on TechCrunch: http://tinyurl.com/crfzm4 Founders Fund, Mitch Kapor + Major Customer adoption. Woo!
— twilio (@twilio) March 2, 2009
thanks to our investors and advisors re: funding announcement @davemcc @albertwenger @sacca @davidcohen @manukumar @daveschappell @mkapor
— twilio (@twilio) December 30, 2009
The Unicorns Tweet
Aside from the first fund-raising tweets from Unicorns, as a bonus, here are a few of the tweets from a few from the billion-dollar club, post their raising the round which made them Unicorns.
We are delighted to announce that Adyen has closed a funding round of $250 million. This marks a new stage in the am…https://t.co/1zhGndJ29t
— Adyen Payments (@Adyen) December 16, 2014
#Nutanix accelerates enterprise datacenter transformation with historic $101M funding round. #webscaleIT http://t.co/k47gQzt5C6
— Nutanix Inc. (@nutanix) January 15, 2014
Domo, Valued at $2 Billion in Latest Funding, Prepares for IPO: http://t.co/L0wUkONKni via @WSJ. #domopalooza #dp15
— Domo (@Domotalk) April 8, 2015
We have big plans for the future and have just finished another round of funding to make them a reality! http://t.co/O7opTT8sHS @ITPtoPortal
— DocuSign (@DocuSign) March 11, 2014
Thank you! RT @MobilePhillip: Congrats to @gordonpayne and @DocuSign on the new funding! http://t.co/BpiTFCfgI3 #DSM14
— DocuSign (@DocuSign) March 5, 2014