Adora, a startup tackling product experience complexity, has successfully closed a US$7 million seed funding round. The investment, led by Australia's largest venture capital firm Blackbird Ventures, values the company at nearly US$35 million. The platform provides product teams with a live, visual understanding of their users' journeys, addressing a critical gap in modern software development.
The Challenge of Modern Product Visibility
Co-founder and CEO Omar Salem identified the core problem during his tenure as head of product growth at Canva. He noted that as products scale, teams lose sight of the actual user experience across different devices, languages, and customer segments. This fragmentation makes it incredibly difficult to maintain a cohesive and intuitive product.
Traditionally, product teams have relied on inadequate tools like static screenshots, outdated design files, and fragmented analytics. This manual process of piecing together a user journey is time-consuming and often fails to capture the dynamic nature of modern software. Adora was created to replace this disjointed approach with a single, reliable source of truth.
An AI-Powered Visual Mapping Platform
Adora's platform automatically captures every screen, interaction, and user path without requiring manual event tagging. It then constructs live visual maps of these journeys, overlaying them with analytics and AI-driven usability insights. This allows teams to see precisely what their customers are experiencing in real-time across all product variations.
The system is designed to proactively identify issues such as broken links, dead ends, or UI elements blocked by pop-ups. By sending automated alerts via Slack, Adora acts as a safety net, enabling teams to address friction points before they escalate. This proactive monitoring is crucial for maintaining a high-quality user experience as development cycles accelerate.
Early adopters during a private beta, including teams from Canva, Notion, and Chess.com, have validated the platform's impact. Albert Cheng, Chief Growth Officer at Chess.com, highlighted how Adora provided essential visibility into their millions of user flows. This feedback underscores the tool's ability to uncover meaningful opportunities for improvement and user friction reduction.
Strategic Backing in an AI-Driven Era
The funding round attracted significant investors, including Skip Capital, Designer Fund, and Garuda Ventures, alongside lead investor Blackbird. This strong backing reflects confidence in Adora's solution as software development accelerates due to AI-assisted coding. The increased pace of feature releases makes a tool for monitoring user experience more critical than ever before.
Blackbird partner Nick Crocker emphasized that understanding the user experience is becoming harder as products scale. He noted that founders Salem and Nathan Scully built Adora to solve a problem they personally faced at major tech companies. This direct founder-market fit was a key factor in the firm's investment decision.
Adora plans to use the capital to expand its product capabilities and grow its Sydney-based team. The company believes its two-and-a-half-year head start in refining its technology and training its AI models provides a significant competitive advantage. This foundation positions Adora to become an indispensable tool for product teams worldwide.
With its public launch and substantial new funding, Adora is poised to redefine how product teams visualize and manage user experiences. The platform offers a crucial layer of clarity in an era of rapid, AI-fueled development. As software complexity continues to grow, Adora's automated insights will likely become a standard for companies focused on user-centric design.