Hiya (company)

Hiya is a Seattle-based company that provides caller profile information to help consumers identify incoming calls and block unwanted ones.

Hiya
Private
IndustrySoftware
Founded2016 (2016)
HeadquartersSeattle, Washington, U.S.
Key people
Alex Algard (Founder, CEO)
Kush Parikh (COO)
Websitewww.hiya.com

History

Hiya was originally developed as a Caller-ID app for Whitepages, the largest database of contact information for Americans [1]. In April 2016, Hiya was spun off from Whitepages. As of April 2016, the Hiya app had 25 million downloads. Whitepages' founder Alex Algard stepped down from the parent company to focus on leading Hiya, which as of April 2016 employs 40.[2][3][4]

In February 2016, Hiya (at the time part of Whitepages) reached a deal with Samsung to integrate its caller profile and spam protection services into all Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge phones in 16 countries.The company extended its partnership with Samsung in a separate deal in August, 2016 to include its service on the Galaxy Note 7, and to expand the partnership to a total of 28 countries. In August 2016, Hiya launched Hiya Cloud, its network level caller ID and call-blocking offering.[5][6][7] After offering only a limited version of its app for iPhones, Hiya announced in September 2016 that the full version of its app would be available on iOS 10. Soon after Hiya began providing spam protection services to AT&T phones through the AT&T Call Protect product. In 2017, Hiya entered a similar partnership with ZTE to provide call spam protection services for all Axon 7 users.[8][9][10]

In October 2017, Hiya announced it had received its first outside funding: a Series A of $18 million led by Balderton Capital with participation from Nautilus Venture Partners and Lumia Capital. Hiya said it would use the funds to expand globally. Following the investment, Balderton’s Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, an early executive at Uber and Dropbox, joined Hiya’s board.[11][12][13][14]

Features

Hiya has a database of 1.5 billion phone numbers that it draws from to identify the source of incoming calls which helps users make a decision about whether or not they want to pick up a call from an unknown number. The service can automatically block calls from numbers that it has deemed to be associated with fraud and notifies the user of the blocked call. In some cases, the app will let the call go through but notify the user that the number is suspected of being spam.[15][16]

Users can report numbers associated with unwanted calls through the app as well as block future calls from certain phone numbers.[17]

References
  1. Matt Marshall, "WhitePages, now the largest database of American people, cleans up act", VentureBeat, July 14, 2009
  2. Lunden, Ingrid (April 27, 2016). "Whitepages spins out its caller-ID business as Hiya to take on True Caller". TechCrunch.
  3. Feldman, Amy (September 16, 2016). "Whitepages founder Alex Algard gives up CEO slot to focus on Caller ID startup Hiya". Forbes.
  4. Soper, Taylor (April 27, 2016). "Whitepages spins out caller-ID and spam-blocking app into startup Hiya". Geekwire.
  5. Soper, Taylor (February 21, 2016). "Whitepages partners with Samsung to pre-install Caller ID software on Galaxy S7 smartphones". Geekwire.
  6. Goenka, Himanshu (August 2, 2016). "Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to ship with Hiya for Robocall, Spam-blocking software". International Business Times.
  7. Gibbs, Colin (August 3, 2016). "Hiya launches network-level Caller ID and spam-blocking offering". Fierce Wireless.
  8. Soper, Taylor (September 13, 2016). "Spam blocker and fraud detection app Hiya launches for iPhone and iOS 10". Geekwire.
  9. Bray, Hiawatha (February 2, 2017). "In Trump era, you may need to beef up your robocall defenses". BostonGlobe.
  10. Soper, Taylor (February 7, 2017). "ZTE integrates spam blocker and fraud protection tech from Hiya into Axon 7 smartphone". Geekwire.
  11. Sawers, Paul (October 19, 2017). "At Whitepages, Alex Algard Bought Out His VCs. Now At Hiya He's Raised $18M To Fight Phone Spam". Venture Beat.
  12. Lerman, Rachel (October 19, 2017). "Seattle startup Hiya raises $18 million". Seattle Times.
  13. Feldman, Amy (October 19, 2017). "At Whitepages, Alex Algard Bought Out His VCs. Now At Hiya He's Raised $18M To Fight Phone Spam". Forbes.
  14. Lunden, Ingrid (October 19, 2017). "Hiya, a Whitepages spinout, nabs $18M for its smart caller ID technology". TechCrunch.
  15. Flynn, Kerry (April 27, 2016). "Meet Hiya: Whitepages spins off Caller ID business with mission to fight robocalls, spam texts worldwide". International Business Times.
  16. Goenka, Himanshu (September 13, 2016). "iPhone 7 robocall block: iOS 10 supports Hiya spam protection". International Business Times.
  17. Stern, Joanna (June 28, 2016). "How to stop robocalls...or at least fight back". Wall Street Journal.
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