Louisville Business First

By Stephen P. Schmidt

February 24, 2023

A Louisville-based startup focused on creating large group chats has something to talk about.

Yornest has been accepted into the highly selective Sputnik ATX’s 13-week accelerator program.

In doing so, Yornest was also able to close out its pre-seed round of $500,000 with $100,000 for getting into Sputnik ATX, which is a venture-based capital firm stationed in Austin, Texas. Before this announcement, the only other similar program that Yornest had taken part in was Louisville's Vogt Awards in 2021.

The company, co-founded by Michael Brizendine, was just one of five startups selected for the winter cohort out of a pool of 1200 applicants, a record for the program in its 11th iteration. The accelerator program “combines early-stage investment with training and mentorship focused on high growth and product-market fit,” according to a release. It should also be noted that out of the five selectees, only three are from the U.S.

In May we reported that Yornest had raised more than $100,000 through WeFunder in less than a month, with the total number ending at $103,150 from 34 investors. In addition, we reported at that time that its largest investor was KeyHorse Capital with $50,000, with contributions from Render Capital ($20,000) and Garrett French as well.

Built to address the capacity issues of other platforms in the group chat space, Yornest first launched in 2020 with an iOS version, and then later released an Android version in 2021, when Assistant Managing Editor Haley Cawthon first wrote about the company.

“We are reimagining the scalability of group chats for large communities and organizations,” Brizendine told me, adding that it is a misnomer that his app is a social media platform.

“You can be in a group chat of a million people and it's exactly like you are in a group chat with just your family. It’s designed to work that way.”

Brizendine, who also serves as Yornest’s chief product officer, told me recently that his platform had approximately 6,000 users and that the platform had an average of 500 messages being sent a day.

The timing of the announcement is fortuitous given that South by Southwest is taking place March 10-19 in Austin. Brizendine said he is going to attempt to be a part of the action by helping people start group chats about when and where unofficial events will be happening around the festival through what he termed “guerilla marketing.”

“One of the great features Yornest is a social calendar that’s attached to the groups,” he said. “And part of what we are trying to do is find the leaders of those unofficial events that will be hosting — on Yornest —and then therefore create an opportunity for growth in that community.”

First time in the States

Yornest was also named as one of our Startups to Watch back in late January. A day before attending the event on Jan. 31, Brizendine met his co-founder, Shaquile Noor, for the first time. It was also the first time Noor — whom Brizendine had initially met online in 2020 through a mutual friend — had been to the U.S.

When they met, Brizendine was in the middle of completing his computer engineering degree at Bellarmine University, which he finished in 2022.

At the event, Noor told me that before the news broke that they had officially been accepted into the Austin accelerator on Jan. 23, his trip was already planned.

“I was ready to just hustle and grind from the streets pretty much, so the fact that we landed this thing in Austin means … a lot of difference in basically everything,” said Noor, who also mentioned that he and Brizendine will have access to a team of “dedicated sales experts” into attention to the “potential breakout events” like South by Southwest and other networking opportunities in Austin.

“All of this stuff is going to go [into] shaping what our next steps are, so that's super exciting,” Noor added.

Eventually, Noor will be making his way to live in the U.S., so they can continue to build the company.

Brizendine — who has been visiting college campuses across the country trying to make inroads with student populations — said that exchange of tickets to college athletic events among students and the fraternity/sorority communities will be two major focal points going forward.