Breather Series B: Twenty Million Thank You’s
Today we announced our Series B funding at Breather. We have successfully raised a 20 million dollar round, and over the past two years raised close to 30 million. This round was lead by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures with Participation by RRE, SOS Ventures and Slow Ventures.
It’s 7:45 am and I’m sitting in our HQ in Montreal watching the press roll in. I can’t help but feel a huge sense of gratitude towards our customers, the people who use our product every day to help grow their business, brainstorm or to just take some time out from a hectic world.
It’s been over two years since I joined Breather. My employee number is 000002. In the beginning, there was a shoebox office within a law firm, a crazy idea, a half baked app with barely any functionality, no locations and a sense of
“what did I get myself into?”
I had left a cushy job, stability and a near stressless life to help build Breather. It wasn’t for the money. I took a big pay-cut, lost all my benefits for a position in a company with 1 year worth of cash in the bank. I left because I believed in Julien, Cat and their idea. It was crazy, yet unbelievably obvious.
We spent the past two years building a world class team, product and most importantly culture. We could not have done this without the amazing team members and customers who believed just as much as the founders and first employees.
I’ve gotten comments such as “you’re rich!” or “You’ve made it!”.
It’s not true. In fact, this feels more like the beginning.
brandon reti 