Quip, the Silicon Valley upstart that competes with word processing services Microsoft Word and Google Docs, announced a new round of funding Thursday, with early Facebook-backer Greylock Partners doubling down on its investment. The startup raised $30 million in new funding from Greylock, and previous investor Benchmark Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $45 million.
Quip, the brainchild of former Facebook chief technology officer and Google (GOOG) engineer Bret Taylor, is a word processor built for where most people are spending their time-on their phones. Taylor explains that along with a shift towards smartphones, the way people work has fundamentally changed.
“No one opens a word processor and types a memo. It’s an experience built in 80s and it hasn’t changed much,” Taylor said.
Launched in 2013, Quip’s cloud-based software let you create and communicate around a document in one place. Next to the workspace with the document, users see a column that includes all messages and comments made about the documents. Instead of multiple threads of conversations around a document, there is one thread of comments. Because of this, it makes it easy to edit and comment from a mobile phone or tablet.
The ability to create and comment on documents when offline is another mobile-focused feature that Quip says helps it stand apart from some of the older word processing services. One of the most popular features, says Taylor, is Quip’s ability to create a checklist for any documents, which essentially is an online version of a task list that can be updated by anyone collaborating on a document.
Taylor says that with no marketing, Quip has amassed 30,000 companies using its service, including his former employer Facebook (FB), as well as Electronic Arts (EA), CNN, New Relic, and Al Jazeera.
Quip is free for an individual users, but small companies pay $12 per user per month, or $25 per user per month for larger enterprises.
Taylor declined to reveal revenue growth or valuation but said the company still has half of its Series A funding (so around $7.5 million) in the bank. Quip plans to use the new funding to double its staff from 30 to around 60 employees, and to start marketing its service.
The company also announced Thursday that New Relic’s chief marketing officer, Patrick Moran, will be joining Quip as chief customer officer.