Vimcal, a YC-backed calendar app, has raised a $4.5 million seed round from Altos Ventures to expand its team and enterprise offerings.
The company, founded by CEO John Li, launched its iOS app and Outlook integration last year. Li told TechCrunch that Vimcal has improved its Outlook integration with fewer bugs.
Since last year, Vimcal has launched an AI-powered free-time finder, which lets you paste meeting slots shared by others in text form. You can also paste a Calendly link to let you see your free slots. The feature also automatically converts those time slots into your time zone.
Vimcal lets users create a meeting with natural language sentences like “Lunch meeting with Lisa at 1 pm tomorrow.” The feature was previously available on desktop, but the company recently added it to Vimcal’s iOS app in October.
In April, Vimcal also launched its product for executive assistants called Maestro. Li said that the product is designed for people handling schedules of multiple executives in different time zones. In its early observations, Vimcal has found that executive assistants scheduling for more than one person can save up to two hours per day with its product.
In the last few months, the company has also rolled out features such as automatic color coding for internal and external meetings and the ability to look for free slots for all members of a team.
Now, the company wants the calendar to become a hub for different meeting-related tools.
“If I am having a call with you, I should have information handy about our past meetings or any notes about what you like. Right now, I have to go to separate apps to check all these things. We want to be like a system of record for companies for all things calendar with great design,” he said.
The productivity space (especially calendar tooling) is pretty competitive. Earlier this month, a YC-backed startup called Superpowered.me, which focused on AI-powered note-taking without involving intrusive recording bots, pivoted to become a voice API provider. The founders are not shutting down Superpowered, but rather keeping it in autopilot mode.
In a market like this, Li said that it comes down to good distribution — Vimcal is hiring marketing and salespeople with new the funds. Great UX also contributes to success. However, he believes that there can be many tools in the space with different entry points such as video calling, transcription, scheduling or note-taking.
The company has raised a total of $6.9 million from investors, including Y Combinator, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Teachable founder Ankur Nagpal and Hustle Fund.