As Phil Libin speaks his Zoom background changes rapidly, cycling through images of his past trips to Japan before settling upon a looping animation of a wooded landscape crafted in paper. Moments later, a Weekend Update-style screen appears in the right side of Libin’s virtual room with presentation text – and Libin follows it, his body reappearing, smaller, next to the box so that he can point with his arm to specific sentences.
This is mmhmm, Libin’s virtual presentation startup, in action. Started in May as “a kind of joke” during shelter-in-place, mmhmm now has thousands of test users, a waitlist of 100,000 and, as of Wednesday, a fresh $31 million in funding to expand. The funding, which includes a $21 million Series A investment led by Sequoia, an additional $5 million raised for Libin’s startup studio All Turtles and $5 million in debt from Silicon Valley Bank, likely values mmhmm in the ballpark of $100 million, all before its general launch.
. . .
