Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging app, has closed a $62 million round of financing led by Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, according to a person close to the deal.
Jim Goetz, a partner at Sequoia, plans to join Yik Yak’s board of directors, according to this person, who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the matter.
This is the third round of venture capital fund-raising for Yik Yak in seven months, bringing the total amount of funding raised to about $73 million. Existing investors also participated in the round, this person said.
Mr. Goetz’s participation in Yik Yak’s growth is a strong vote of confidence for the young start-up, which was introduced little more than a year ago. Mr. Goetz invested in WhatsApp, another popular messaging app, in 2011, when the company was a relative unknown to many in the United States. That investment paid off; Facebook bought WhatsApp in February for more than $21 billion, netting Sequoia a huge return on its original investment.
The messaging space is particularly competitive. Aside from WhatsApp, which hosts more than half a billion users, other companies like Kik, Tango and Viber, which offer similar services, are competing for users and attention as well.
Yik Yak differentiates itself by focusing on local communication; users chat anonymously with one another based on their location. And the company says it is highly popular within schools and universities.
News of the funding round was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.