Grammarly, a San Francisco-based startup that uses machine learning and AI to help improve people's writing , yesterday announced that it raised $110 million in VC funding led by General Catalyst. A portion of the round is secondary capital (i.e., early shareholder liquidity), per a source close to the deal.
History: This is the company's first round of outside funding ― it didn't even raise angel capital ― despite having been around since 2009. The basic explanation is that Grammarly was founded in Ukraine, which at the time had neither an active VC scene locally nor foreign investors interested in Ukranian startups. So the co-founders bootstrapped (as they had with a previous startup).
Metrics: The company reports 6.9 million daily active users and has 110 current employees.
Connections: Brad Hoover took over as CEO back in 2011, before which he spent six years as a VC with deal lead General Catalyst.
