Madrona Adds Jeff Mills as Partner to Lead Silicon Valley Expansion; Nex Hires Former Walmart Execs; Amperity CEO Steps Down
Seattle venture firm Madrona hired Jeff Mills as partner to expand its Silicon Valley presence, while Nex appointed two former Walmart tech leaders, and Amperity's CEO Barry Padgett stepped down. Other Pacific Northwest tech industry moves include leadership changes at Zendesk and Cohesity.
Forest Key
Forest is Founder and CEO of Voodle, a short video app for business teams to capture, share and discover important business moments as they happen where they work – home, office, or on the road. Forest is a serial entrepreneur with a 30 year passion for innovation in video platforms. Previously founder and CEO of hospitality marketing SaaS provider buuteeq, and visual effects software tools innovator Puffin Designs. He was a founding partner of China based UX design and development studio for OTT video applications Redsafi, and the founder CEO of Pixvana which spent 4 years developing a VR video…
Voodle raises $6M from Madrona and Vulcan to sell TikTok-style workplace video for remote teams
Seattle startup Voodle raised $6 million in a round led by Madrona Venture Group and Vulcan Capital to offer a TikTok-like, bite-sized video communication app for workplaces aimed at reducing Zoom fatigue and Slack overload. The app — launched earlier in 2020 by former Pixvana execs and available on iOS, Android and web — includes searchable clips with transcriptions and integrations with workplace tools.
Voodle launches short-form workplace video app after Pixvana shutdown; Pixvana had raised $20M
Seattle startup Voodle launched a short-form, selfie-style workplace video app—spun out of Pixvana after that company closed—to replace lengthy calls and text updates with searchable, transcribed clips that integrate with apps like Salesforce and HubSpot. Pixvana had raised $20 million before shuttering in late 2019 when CEO Forest Key concluded AR/VR wasn’t yet ready for mainstream business scale.
