the release, but consumers found their way around those). And e-mail inbox management wasn’t even Baydin’s focus when it got into TechStars—originally the company was working on semantic Web-based technology for dragging and dropping files relevant to e-mails. As of a few weeks ago, about 75,000 users had downloaded the plug-in, Moore says.
Baydin filed a document with the SEC this past Wednesday revealing it had raised $50,000 of a planned $500,000 round of debt- and rights-based funding. (Moore says the startup got $50,000 at the end of September from 500 Startups and will get another $50,000 from the fund at the end of this month.) He’s planning on meeting with more investors once the move out West is finished, and will put the funding toward scaling the technology and prototyping an “e-mail game,” which is supposed to make going through your inbox more fun, he says.
Baydin was considering a move to the Bay Area prior to Moore’s run-in with McClure, but it wasn’t definite. “We’re in the e-mail space, and all the major e-mail names are out there.” But that “#PitchVCtaxi” event, and another trip out to the area in late September helped the company make up its mind, Moore says.
“People like Dave don’t exist very many places in the world outside the Valley,” he says, “and we thought it made sense to be there.”
