Most city government communications are stuck in the past, but three Latino entrepreneurs came up with a tech-savvy way forward. And their startup raised a $1.2 million seed round.
Alberto Gomez, Beto Altamirano, and Eduardo Bravo co-founded Irys to help cities and other groups improve community engagement, Igor Bosilkovski reported recently in Forbes.
“The problem here is that governments are reactive, they are not proactive. They react to the challenges when they are presented to them,” co-founder and CEO Beto Altamirano told Bosilkovski. “What we are trying to do is bridge the gap in communication.”
Irys is a customizable software as a service platform that allows users to flag issues like potholes and broken lights through a mobile app. Geolocated info goes to a smart government dashboard. Good Growth Capital led the company’s recent funding round, according to Forbes.
For today’s Plug In South LA Beat, our regular curation of must-read innovation and tech news, we’re learning how the San Antonio-based co-founders expanded their community-building platform to 15 cities:
Meet the Latino Entrepreneurs Whose App for Urban Services Just Raised $1.2 Million
Photo: (Left to right) Irys co-founders Alberto Gomez, Beto Altamirano, and Eduardo Bravo. Credit: Josh Huskin