OwnTrail, a Seattle-based life-and-career social startup, is being acquired by Miami-based job search-and-apply platform Teal.
Terms of the deal, announced Tuesday, were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, OwnTrail CEO and founder Rebekah Bastian will join Teal as an advisor. The company will not take on OwnTrail’s three other full-time employees.
“I was in conversations with a few potential acquirers, and Teal felt like the right choice because they are so aligned with us in terms of values and vision,” Bastian told GeekWire via email.
Launched in 2020, OwnTrail’s social platform lets users map their career trajectory, highlighting important milestones in their professional growth, personal relationships and well-being. They can also share their paths with other users, offering insights and lessons from their own paths.
Bastian dubs OwnTrail as “authentech,” blending the words authentic and tech to describe its community-focused business model. The startup has 6,600 users and more than 35,000 life milestones. It previously charged a subscription fee, but its features will be made free following the acquisition. Customers come from companies like Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, CNN, Zillow and Squarespace.
OwnTrail raised $250,000 in 2020 through a crowdfunding campaign, then an additional $570,000 in 2021. Earlier this year, the company was part of TechStars’ 2023 Anywhere Accelerator cohort. Total funding is $1.5 million.
OwnTrail investors include The House Fund, Union Bay Partners, TechStars, Christi Muoneke, Ellie Wu, Adam Schoenfeld, Uma Sekar and David Aronchick.
Bastian cited difficulty raising venture capital as a main driver in the move to sell the company in a LinkedIn blog post Tuesday morning.
“We had a lot of momentum going from a product, community and team standpoint, but it was just not possible to raise additional funding in the current market — even after having just completed Techstars,” Bastian said. “The most important thing to me has been to keep OwnTrail going, for the thousands of people that have come to rely on it.”
OwnTrail was founded by a team of women who built the company out of a converted garage. Bastian teamed up with co-founder and chief community officer KT McBratney, who left in April, and VP of engineering Carolyn Dunn, who departed in July.
Teal, launched in 2018, sells a suite of tools that help job-seekers locate and apply for jobs. It raised more than $11 million, including a $5 million round in 2020 led by Flybridge Capital.
