Having finally secured seed funding of $650,000, Newfoundland startup HeyOrca! is looking to take on more staff and increase the sales of its marketing collaboration platform.

Until recently, the company had just three people on staff Co-Founders Joseph Teo, Sahand Seifi and web developer Nadia Sajjadi. Now it is in the process of bulking up to a five-member team, as well as adding some co-op students and part-time employees.

That will help the company to increase its sales effort, working with both marketing agencies and the marketing departments at major corporations that want to simplify the process of creating content.

“2015 was the year that we validated the business model and 2016 is the year when we’ll amp it up and bring on more developers,” said CEO Joe Teo.

HeyOrca! was the first company from Newfoundland and Labrador to go through the Propel ICT Build program the regional accelerator’s mentoring course for more advanced companies. Once it completed the course, it was able to close funding from BDC Capital and the Venture Newfoundland and Labrador fund, which are funding partners for Propel. And St. John’s-based Killick Capital also joined the funding party, bringing the total equity investment up to $650,000.

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Teo said he expects the funding to last 12 to 18 months, depending on how much revenue the company takes in.

Operating out of the Genesis Centre in St. John’s, HeyOrca! helps marketing agencies managing multiple client brands to visually plan and seamlessly approve social media content. “We are doing to social media content what Google Docs did to Word Doc,” said Teo.

HeyOrca! has integrated it with software commonly used by marketers, such as Dropbox and Google Drive.

“The whole focus is: how can we make the social media process absolutely seamless for the [marketing] teams and other stakeholders?” said Teo.

When they began, they planned to target mainly marketing agencies. But they have also found that brands (meaning large corporations with consumer products) have also learned of HeyOrca! and a few are now using the product.

As it scales its business, Teo said the team wants to “double-down on agencies,” meaning that it’s planning a sales and marketing drive that will increase the use of the product among major marketing agencies. He added that the main target market for the coming drive now is the U.S., although it now has clients evenly divided between the U.S. and Canada.

“But our goal is also to get a few marquee brands that can serve as references,” he said.

Teo added that the HeyOrca! is contemplating applying for another accelerator outside the region, which has become an increasingly popular route for companies aiming to expand their network. But first the company wants to increase its revenues and be in a better position to present its business.