Smart messaging display, Vestaboard, raising $5 million in a seed round led by the startup's customers.  Vestaboard says it re-imagines the design of a split-flap display that you might see at a train station in Europe, bringing it into the 21st century for homes and workplaces.  The funding round will help the brand move from a pre-order to an inventory-based model, meet marketing and sales plans and commence R&D for a second, more economical display.  Dorrian Porter, founder & CEO of Vestaboard, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.

Closing Bell

Smart Messaging Display Vestaboard Raises $5 Million

smart messaging display company vest aboard, raising $5 million in a seed round led by the startups, customers vest board says it re imagines the design of a split flap display that you might see at a train station in europe for instance and brings it into the 21st century. Take a look. This is best aboard a beautiful smart messaging display. You control it with your smartphone or from your computer. You can use vestibule at home to share messages or view your calendar. You can use vest aboard at work to inspire your teams or your customers. Pretty cool joining me now is Dorian Porter founder and Ceo vest aboard at Dorian. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I see the vestibule behind you. Tell me more about the uniqueness of your product. Thank you so much for having us today. Um well that is unique because it's based as you mentioned on the train station displays, you might see in europe as you're traveling um from yesteryear, although they're still there 10 years ago, I was in a paris train station and I was mesmerized by how it would flip and decided that it would be fun to send messages to my kids back at home, but I didn't want to put another display in the house. They've got enough TVs and screen time as it is and so we can see vestibule. It is a high end smart messaging display that takes the power of the internet and allows you to send messages from anywhere in the world or or connect to different services and information. Um I love that you can send inspirational messages on this very platform that you're right is not necessarily your typical smartphone screen with the blue light and other features and distractions built in. Are there other use cases Durian for this festive board? Sure. I mean at home people are using it as, as you mentioned for inspirational messages for the family but also keeping the family organized, keeping the family informed. Um, you'll see it for announcements or when guests come over, having fun with it. And we're continuing to build on our software platform for home to include things like games that you can play on best aboard. And what makes it different is it's not a glowing screen. So it just takes a little bit of the edge off of everyone staring at their mobile phones in the workplace. You see range, you know, digital signage markets, an enormous opportunity at work. There's already tons of digital signage out. There is a unique display that small business can use for menus or to announce guests, guest information, sales at a retail setting. Or even larger enterprises implementing it in their retail or for some of their customers to engage with, which is a unique display that both fits home and work. And we're enjoying some nice traction with it. Okay, so you just raised a seed round, congratulations again, Dorian can people get their hands on one of these vested boards today. Well, technically, yes, in the sense that they can order one. We've, we've been operating on a pre order model for a number of years actually. So we've been months and months as we continue to build out our inventory. One of the purposes of this financing is to allow us to move to a real time inventory model. So this, this fall will start to ship on, on availability. You can still go to the website and order it. You'll be, you'll be a month or so away from getting it. And this fall in this christmas, we expect to have a big season of shipping product as it's ordered. What's the price? We priced festival at $2,995. It's on the high end obviously of the smart display market, uh, competes with products like Amazon Echo show or Google Nest Hub as a display. But it's very different and it's very complex to make. And manufacturer festival has over 14,000 part and that all goes into making it a special and unique product. Okay, now I think I saw that it was compatible. You have to have an app right to actually power what's on the vest aboard. And I think I saw that it was compatible compatible with apple google. What sort of phones, operating systems? Dorian do people need to be able to control the vest aboard. Yeah. Any android apps or any android phone. Um, you know, via google's android platform and, or IOS both download the app, use it to control vest aboard. You can either send messages or set the messages you get. We also have a full web platform that people can log into on our website to control their vest aboard. And importantly allows developers to actually build out there applications using our Api So we see tremendous potential for vest aboard with developers to build out interesting applications. In addition to what we offer our customers on the mobile apps. Very cool. How did you come up with the idea? Well, I, I mentioned I was sitting in garden or in paris in 2012 and I was not surprised by the, by the signage there as it was flipping to tell people what their trains would be departing. And I did wonder to myself, you know, would it be cool to have one of these in my, in my home? It turned out to be cool, but very complex to make and it was quite a journey. And by the time I showed enough people the idea, I was convinced that there there could be a significant market for this display. And then part of the investment funds were going to use to research other displays that we can launch alongside our flagship product uh, and offer our software with other displays that we may build and offer in the future. And I hope you'll come back. I'm excited to see where your company goes. That's Dorian Porter, founder and Ceo vestibule congrats.