{
  "id": 15160347,
  "title": "In 2013 he put $200K into Calendly, now worth $3B with 50M users",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/17/in-2013-he-put-200k-into-calendly-now-worth-3b-with-50m-users",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-10-17T08:21:06.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Times of India",
    "slug": "times-of-india",
    "url": "https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/in-2013-tope-awotona-emptied-about-200000-of-his-savings-to-build-calendly-eight-years-later-investors-valued-the-company-at-3-billion-and-it-now-says-more-than-50-million-people-use-the-platform/articleshow/134990113.cms"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In 2013, entrepreneur Tope Awotona founded Calendly to address the frustration he experienced while scheduling meetings for his sales work. He invested his personal savings and sought loans, ultimately spending over $200,000 to build the initial product. Eight years later, Calendly had attracted more than 50 million users and a $3 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch.\n\nAwotona's background included work in enterprise software sales for IBM and Dell, giving him firsthand knowledge of the scheduling challenges he sought to solve. He hired a development team in Ukraine, even traveling to Kyiv in 2014 during anti-government protests to oversee the project's progress.\n\nAwotona financed the business out of pocket, using his retirement account, savings, and debt. By November 2020, the company had raised about $550,000 in outside investments, focusing on revenue and organic growth rather than repeated large fundraising rounds. This strategy enabled Calendly to reach new users through word-of-mouth and professional interactions, a valuable tactic as remote work and virtual meetings gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nIn January 2021, Calendly secured a $350 million investment from OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq Capital, valuing the company at over $3 billion. Since then, the platform has evolved from a simple scheduling tool into a comprehensive meeting-management system, with over 50 million users across 240 countries and territories, and facilitating more than 1.3 billion meetings.",
  "summary": "In 2013, Tope Awotona launched Calendly to tackle the difficulties professionals face in scheduling meetings. His journey began with personal funds, retirement savings, and loans, slowly gathering momentum. By 2021, Calendly had soared to a valuation exceeding $3 billion, driven by a booming user base and the demand for streamlined online scheduling.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}