Techstars grad BubbleIQ rebrands, raises $2.6M

BOULDER — BubbleIQ Inc., a Boulder-based startup that has designed a conversational ticketing solution that integrates with Slack, has rebranded as “Halp” and raised $2.6 million in seed funding.

The company reported the funding in a Form D filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, while simultaneously announcing the funding and rebrand in a press release. The funds came from 20 investors, the company reported, and the amount raised “includes conversion of outstanding Simple Agreements for Future Equity and an outstanding convertible promissory note.”

Groups participating in the funding included Techstars Ventures, Slack Fund, Matchstick Ventures, Next Frontier Capital, Access Venture Partners, FirstMile Ventures, and Kokopelli Capital. BubbleIQ was a member of the Techstars Boulder class of 2018.

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Halp launched as BubbleIQ in 2017, focused on integrating the Slack inter-office communication tool with the help desk and ticketing system of Zendesk. BubbleIQ CEO and co-founder Fletcher Richman had realized that, even as companies were moving away from email-based communication and toward conversational messaging, “internal ticketing remained inefficient and stuck in the past,” the company said in a prepared statement.

BubbleIQ quickly attracted high-profile customers, including Adobe, Paylocity, KIPP, Udacity and JustWorks, the company said.

“The way people work is fundamentally changing, and the systems we use in the workplace need to change as well,” Richman said. “Conversational messaging is the future, and with this funding, we are helping companies upgrade their legacy ticketing systems and solve internal problems faster and more efficiently. As a result, our customers have happier employees, better employee retention and more productive IT teams.”

Richman told BizWest that BubbleIQ will not formally change its name but will operate as Halp.

Additionally, Halp has expanded beyond focusing on Zendesk, with the Halp product able to stand on its own as a ticketing system, Richman said. But the company will continue to support Zendesk.

“A lot of our customers are still on Zendesk, and we’re continuing to support that,” he said.

Companies using Zendesk will actually use the Halp ticketing product, which will then sync with Zendesk.

Halp will use the funds to continue to enhance the product by adding more integrations, increasing the ability for teams to automate their work, measure efforts and quantify the need for additional resources.

Halp is located in the Galvanize space in downtown Boulder but is moving to a new location at 1515 Walnut St. The company currently employs seven people, with plans to grow to 10 in the next couple of months and 20 next year. Some of those new employees will be in sales and marketing.

Richman said the Techstars program gave the company a major boost.

“It was hugely impactful,” he said, noting that Natty Zola, a partner with Matchstick Ventures, serves as managing director of the Techstars Boulder program.

“I think about fundraising as a relationship-building process,” Richman said, noting that “almost all of the folks that we had in this round” were connections made through Techstars.

“Techstars was a great opportunity for us to start to build those relationships,” he said.

Richman said that typical tech funding rounds provide “18 to 24 months of runway.” He said Halp’s goal is to hit break-even during this round so that additional rounds aren’t needed.

“Our goal is, we want to get back to being in control of our own destiny,” he said.

This article has been updated to include comments from Fletcher Richman.