- Jour, a guided journaling app company announced it raised $1.8 million in a seed round of funding
- This round of funding was led by early-stage venture capital firm True Ventures.
Guided journaling app company Jour has announced it raised $1.8 million in a seed round. This round of funding was led by early-stage venture capital firm True Ventures.
Jour provides a place to maintain personal journals and encourages people to reflect and create a record of their lives. In about four months, Jour organically gained over 25,000 preorders in the App Store. And ever since it released to the public on March 5, 2019, the Jour community grew to more than 65,000 users.
“Today, nearly 1 in 5 people have a diagnosable mental illness (NIH) and mental illness impedes 1 in 25 people (NAMI) from leading their everyday lives,” said Jour CEO and co-founder Maxime Germain. “We wanted to create a product that would have a positive impact on personal wellbeing and assist individuals around the world to feel better, calmer, and more present.”
Jour co-founders Germain, Bobby Giangeruso, and Justin Bureau observed that writing exercises like journaling improves mood, physical health, working memory, and productivity. And the team also found journaling to be an easily implemented and portable for themselves — which does not require previous experiences or wellness practices.
Plus the Jour app makes journaling more effective by offering a variety of guided Journeys, which are created with the input of psychology experts. These interactive and step-by-step tracks also help people who enjoy journaling focus on their practices on not only what they have done in the past, but on how they can continue to grow.
“Max and his team are passionate, highly motivated, and have an incredible eye for beautiful design,” added True Ventures partner Kevin Rose. “They are inventive in their use of prompts to guide journaling and getting the user to take that first step toward self-reflection. We’re excited to see how Max and the team grow Jour’s product offerings and teach new communities the benefits of this practice.”
Seasoned entrepreneur Rose is on the board of Jour and he has experience with launching a guided meditation app called Oak. Rose is also known as the founder of Zero Fasting, the founder of Digg, the co-founder of Revision3, and the co-founder of Milk Inc. He began his career as a TV host of TechTV.
With this round of funding, Jour is going to finance the creation of premium and month-long Journeys that will incorporate both audio content and written questions. And these new and more immersive tracks will assist Jour in the company’s long-term vision that will make journaling a more accessible practice in improving mental health and wellbeing.
