Brazen Careerist raises $4.7 million, rebrands

Brazen, the chat-based events platform, announced Thursday it has raised $4.7 million, which will help fund the company’s expansion plans.
Newly re-branded from “Brazen Careerist,” the Arlington-based company unveiled a new product: a B2B chat platform. Its growth plans also include nearly doubling its employee count from 24 to 40 by the end of the year, and almost tripling its office space.
Bisnow reports:

Text-based messaging is a hot space now, says [CEO] Ed [Barrientos], and being used more than any other form of communication. Employee engagement is also a huge area of interest in HR. Brazen’s specialty is its algorithms to connect people who don’t know each other but should be connected. Other similar chat tools like Slack connect people within a company who know each other. Ed and [president] Ryan [Healy] say the funding will help Brazen target new customers. One area of interest is using the tool for mentoring, particularly in large government agencies.