Innovation in the mobile email space is long overdue.
If you’re an iPhone user, scrolling through a mess of transcripts, signatures and text blocks on your 4-inch display can be a real pain.
That’s where Hong Kong/San Francisco startup MailTime comes in. With its intelligent content parsing engine, MailTime converts your emails into messaging bubbles, incorporates neat features such as ‘@ mentioning’ and encourages concise writing with a ‘Too Long, Didn’t Read’ alert.
Having raised $500,000 in seed funding from a group of angels in both China and Silicon Valley including Zhen Fund, Crystal Stream, Gary Rieschel, ChinaRock and Huang Mingming earlier this year, MailTime has also been backed by Cyberport’s Creative Micro Fund and STEFG-PolyU’s China Entrepreneurship Fund.
Hong Kong entrepreneurs Heatherm Huang and Gary Lau are the two founders behind MailTime. In the past, the two built TalkBox, an instant voice messaging app, and have since continued their passion for communication by disrupting the mobile email space.
And if you’re familiar with StartupsHK, yes, that is our former Girl Friday; Charlie Sheng in the photo above. She left us earlier this year to join this bright new startup.
“When we were building Talkbox, the first push-to-talk voice messenger, we found its limitations out of the closed network,” said Heatherm. “Even though messaging apps are getting more popular than ever, people are still not connected. The network within each messaging app is closed and it stops people from different services to communicate.”
Although MailTime was conceived in Hong Kong, the team has moved out to the Bay Area to continue their startup adventures there.
Want to give MailTime a go? The app is out on beta for iOS – request an invite here.
MailTime on Startbase.HK: MailTime
Heatherm Huang on Startbase.HK: Heatherm Huang
