We've kept this under wraps for a few months, but we're finally ready to announce our addition of Convox to the Curious family. This is our first majority acquisition from the new $16M permanent capital fund and a perfect example of the work we're dedicated to doing.

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If you've worked in software development, you may have heard of Convox. The company was founded in 2014 by former Heroku engineers and spun out of Y Combinator as a way to simplify infrastructure scalability, particularly for fast-growing applications. The entire platform is dedicated to reducing DevOps overhead for startups and large companies.

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Convox has been around for nearly 10 years now, and with that, it has changed hands several times. This inevitably leads to different areas of focus and occasionally, fatigue or lack of belief in the long-term potential of the business, depending on the cap table and who is on it. We noticed a bit of that with Convox, so our core intention in acquiring Convox is to breathe life back into the team and business, while doubling down on the core platform and customers. If you're familiar with Convox, you'll notice that investment and commitment with the fresh brand identity and coat of paint (old look courtesy of Wayback Machine) that we recently rolled out. It's only a new website and feel, so we don't want to overstate it, but it speaks to how Curious believes in operating the companies we acquire.

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We're gearing up for the next decade plus and make all of our decisions in that context.

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Looking at the road ahead, we were fortunate to be able to bring much of the Convox core team forward with the business, including Nick Thoni, who will be leading the company as its GM. As we've been digging in with Nick and the team, it's become obvious that the opportunity for Convox exists in investing in the open source components, while building a better application and process for product led growth. If you're a Convox customer or user, you'll see that investment into the open source community and significant improvements to the Convox Console, the platform's primary web application.

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This is a perfect example of the why behind Curious.

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As company builders and operators, nothing makes us more sad than seeing startups shut down or go into maintenance mode. That's how people get laid off and products die. This is a great case study and example of the work we love to do. Taking a brand that had largely been forgotten or a cap table that may not believe in the long-term potential of the business, and working to reset that business with fresh eyes and optimism.