Office gossip app Blind's parent gets new investment

TeamBlind raised $37 million in new funding, the startup said Tuesday, which will be used to accelerate a Nasdaq listing originally planned for 2025.

The company operates Blind, an anonymous forum for Korean employees to discuss their companies or industries.

TeamBlind's Series C funding round was led by Mainstreet Investment, a Korean venture capital firm. Among new investors are San Francisco-based Cisco Investments and Pavilion Capital, a subsidiary of Temasek, Singapore's state-run investment company. DCM Ventures and Storm Ventures also invested.

According to TeamBlind, the new investors believed that Blind users will continue to increase after the pandemic.

Before Covid-19, user traffic was heaviest before and after office hours. As more employees worked from home, traffic remain constant through the day.

"This past pandemic year has shown that the workplace community is an incredibly important part of any organization," said Osuke Honda, a general partner of DCM Ventures. "Blind serves as that community for many of the world's leading companies."

Blind has been an outlet for Korean workers' gossip and whistle-blowing that blew the lid of high profile examples of workplace misconduct.

Outside Korea, Blind has become popular in Silicon Valley. According to TeamBlind, its anonymous community app has the second largest number of verified, white-collar users after LinkedIn.

It now has more than 5 million users across two markets: 1.5 million in the U.S. and 3.5 million in Korea.

"From the start, we established our headquarters in Silicon Valley with a global business in mind," said TeamBlind CEO Moon Sung-uk. "We plan to continue expansion in the United States, as well as establishing bases in markets like Canada and India, where we're already gaining traffic."

BY SONG KYOUNG-SON [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]