Orai hits 5K downloads, gets a Fast Company shoutout

Orai, the Philly-made app that promises to make you a better public speaker, slid into our inbox early this morning as part of Fast Company’s newsletter.

In an article by Fast Company reporter John Converse Townsend, cofounder Danish Dhamani spoke about how public speaking has become his passion thanks to the challenges of having English as a second language.

Founded in 2015 by Drexel grads Dhamani and Paritosh Gupta, the app has gone through a couple of previous iterations as SayUmm and Oratio. The company also landed a VentureBeat profile last month and was brought home the No. 2 spot on Microsoft’s U.S. Imagine Cup.

“This app can level the playing field,” Dhamani told Fast Company. “Anyone can be entrepreneurial, get job interviews, get whatever thing they’re seeking – and I think Orai can really help with that by empowering every single person in any part of the world with the voice to unlock tons of opportunities.”

Um, so… we just got featured in @FastCompany! Tweet back with what you think! #EverythingGonnaBeOrai https://t.co/SdKpwXMAaV

— Orai (@OraiApp) June 5, 2017

So what’s the latest from the company, beyond the press hits? For one, the free app just hit 5,000 downloads. And as we’ve seen with other companies from our realLIST roundup, it has a B2B play in place.

“We finished developing our enterprise platform for sales teams,” Dhamani told Technical.ly in an email. “We have begun carrying our demos to several teams with fast growing sales teams. A key focus is also life science companies.”