Silk, an Amsterdam-based startup that helps users to visualize, store and share content-rich information, today announced the completion of a $1.6 million seed funding round (Update – March 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website and we therefore deactivated the link).
The round was led by leading global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing Silk investor Atomico and three additional investors. The young company will use the fresh capital to further expand the team and scale up infrastructure and development efforts.
Silk is a place to store, share and find information that is important to you; share those special places in Barcelona, the video games you’re playing, or the height of your children as they grow. To give some more examples for company use, public transport companies can use Silk to find patterns in delays; human rights organizations can keep track of violations by governments; and investors like NEA can publish their investment portfolio. The information in a Silk site is shared with those who are interested, but also remains available to be searched and used in the future. Silk helps users to make sense of information, and thereby better understand the world around us.
Silk’s technology has been in development since 2009. The company announced its first funding round in April 2011 and one month later won the “Best overall startup” award at The Next Web Conference. The service launched in open beta in May this year.
Salar al Khafaji, the CEO and co-founder of Silk, stated: “We are thrilled that NEA has chosen to partner with us in this endeavor and that Atomico has followed up on their investment from last year. It is another exciting milestone for Silk in a year of rapid growth.”
“In a time of information overload, it can be an overwhelming challenge to effectively share and search structured information,” said Pete Sonsini, General Partner, NEA. “We’re impressed with Silk’s vision and with the technology the team has developed, which we believe will have a great impact on the way people will use structured information.”
Additional backers of the round include Anil Hansjee, a well-known angel and advisor to many companies including Fon, who also previously served as Google’s head of Corporate Development (EMEA). Other backers include Jens Christensen, a private investor best known for his role as CEO of Ellerdale (acquired by Flipboard), and Philippe Cases, an angel investor and entrepreneur, currently CEO of Spoke Software.
By the way: You can find out about other interesting startups from The Netherlands in this list.
