Vimcal, a calendar app supported by Y Combinator, has secured a $4.5 million seed funding round from Altos Ventures to bolster its team and expand enterprise offerings. Founded by CEO John Li, the company introduced its iOS app and Outlook integration last year, focusing on refining the Outlook integration to minimize bugs.
Over the past year, Vimcal introduced an AI-driven free-time finder, enabling users to input meeting slots in text form or Calendly links to visualize available time slots, automatically converting them to the user’s time zone. The app facilitates meeting creation using natural language sentences, like “Lunch meeting with Lisa at 1 pm tomorrow,” a feature initially available on desktop, but recently extended to the iOS app in October.
In April, Vimcal unveiled “Maestro,” a product tailored for executive assistants managing schedules across multiple time zones. Early findings indicate that users handling schedules for multiple executives can save up to two hours daily. The company has continued to enhance its features, introducing automatic color coding for internal and external meetings and the ability to find free slots for entire team members.
Looking forward, Vimcal aspires to transform its calendar into a central hub for diverse meeting-related tools. CEO John Li envisions the platform providing comprehensive information about past meetings and preferences, eliminating the need to check multiple apps.
Navigating the competitive productivity landscape, Vimcal recognizes the importance of distribution and plans to hire marketing and sales personnel with the newly acquired funds. Li emphasizes the significance of a great user experience and believes in the potential for various tools within the productivity space, including video calling, transcription, scheduling, and note-taking.
To date, Vimcal has raised $6.9 million from notable investors such as Y Combinator, Joe Gebbia (Airbnb co-founder), Dick Costolo (former Twitter CEO), Ankur Nagpal (Teachable founder), and Hustle Fund.
