Mobile-first SaaS platform Prompt.ly received USD 1.5 million in its seed funding round from various angel investors and funds. Facebook's Ethan Beard and Subtraction Capital led the financing. Information gleaned from its CrunchBase profile describes Prompt.ly as a platform that focuses on the "Invisible Economy" of service providers. The service enables psychologists, tutors, chiropractors, realtors, dogwalkers, babysitters and personal trainers, among others, to enhance the management, monetization and marketing of their services.
Prompt.ly is led by an experienced duo of tech entrepreneurs. Co-Founder Richard Titus was the former Chief Executive Officer of Associated Northcliffe Digital, the company which was responsible for the creation of Daily Mail online. His Co-Founder Eli-Shaoul Khedouri was the former Chief Architect of infosec for New York City.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Titus revealed that Prompt.ly began with the premise that "time is broken." As such, a purpose-built platform to manage one's schedule and time was needed. Titus said that a huge "invisible economy" exists for on-demand tasks, for people who make a living by selling their time, either by the hour or by the service.
By gathering data from official sources like the SBA and IRS, the founders realized that an estimated 20 million to 60 million people in the US are engaged in this type of time-based work, which translates to USD 1.27 trillion dollars of economic activity on a yearly basis. Their service also accounts for one in every five purchases, Titus said in the interview. They were also able to identify 1,200 categories of people in this line of work.
Titus told TechCrunch, "This is an enormous part of the economy but it has no back office. Less than 150 of the people we spoke to had a computer and yet all had smartphones." The Android app is already available in beta but the iPhone app is still waiting for clearance, the TechCrunch report said.
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