Ourly, a startup based in York, has raised $4 million to grow its web-based platform that helps parents organize their children’s chores and pay them for the work.
The company’s platform allows parents to assign chores to their children, and for the children to confirm the tasks are done before payment for those chores is released. The company partners with banks to link accounts with the app.
The money was raised in the form of equity and debt, according to documents recently filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company filed a document on Jan. 19 showing it raised $3,423,081 in equity financing out of a $3,588,989 offering from 19 investors. It then filed another document on Feb. 13 showing that it had raised $500,000 in debt and/or warrants and options to acquire another security out of a $3 million offering. Strangely, CEO John Malone is listed as an executive officer in one, but not the other.
Ourly launched in 2016 as Ourly.help and received some media attention in the Boston market from BostInno and Education News. One of its early investors was Cambridge Innovations, which issued a press release in 2016. It’s unclear if Ourly launched in Boston and later moved to York, or has always been located in Maine. An email to Ourly asking for details and requesting an interview with CEO John Malone remained unanswered as of Friday afternoon.
According to the Education News article, the company’s first product was called Opprtuna and was a platform for hiring local kids to do work, but that it pivoted when the company realized people were using the platform to mostly hire their own kids to do the work.
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