Thinkfuse, a Seattle startup led by former Market Leader and iLike product manager Aydin Ghajar and former Microsoft software engineers Brandon Bloom and Steve Krenzel, has landed $500,000 in startup capital from a group of angel investors. Andy Sack, a partner at Founder’s Co-op and an investor, confirmed the $500,000 round Thursday night in a message to GeekWire. A TechStars Seattle grad, the company is housed at the Founder’s Co-op offices in South Lake Union. The news was first reported by TechCrunch, which noted that other investors included Ali and Hadi Partovi, SV Angel and Scott Banister.

The company’s Web site is pretty bare bones at the moment, simply declaring that “if you are still using email or sharepoint for status reports, we’re here to save you.”

The involvement of Ali and Hadi Partovi makes some sense since the twin brothers previously worked with Ghajar at iLike, the online music company which was sold to MySpace in 2009.

Here’s a closer look at what ThinkFuse is up to, with co-founder Brandon Bloom talking to blogger Robert Scoble about the product.


“What our tool does, is it starts as kind of work flow tool for people and product managers to make sure that the right content gets put into reports and they get mailed to the right people,” said Bloom in the video, adding that the company is taking a similar business approach to Yammer.

Other potential competitors include SharePoint, Basecamp, Jive, Asana, Salesforce, and many more, though Bloom added that no one is taking the same approach.

“Communication and collaboration is a busy space, but that’s because there’s money in it,” Bloom tells GeekWire. He added that the biggest competitor remains people using email to track status reports.

The idea for the startup was inspired from their work at Microsoft and Google, with Bloom noting that they encountered problems trying to keep developers on the same page. At this time, the company has several undisclosed beta customers testing the system.

John Cook is co-founder of GeekWire. Follow on Twitter: @geekwirenews.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.