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Tech Topics In This Article: Event Tech, consumer startups, Chattanooga startups, pre-seed rounds
Tens of thousands of event goers around the world are using Chattanooga consumer startup Totem to stay connected to their friends and safe during their festivities.
The “Fest Tech” startup, founded in 2023, introduced the Totem Compass as a “friend-finding device” designed to help users locate each other in large crowds. Unlike the Find My Friend feature on a smartphone — which lacks precise location tracking and may struggle in heavily trafficked areas — Totem Compasses provide accurate positioning within dense crowds.
Users can bond their personal Totem compass with four other Totems at one time. The peer-to-peer tracking device works without the need for cellular networks, Wi-Fi, or a downloaded app. Once a Totem is paired with another Totem, the device lights up and leads people directly to their friends.
“The original idea came about after my co-founder and CTO, Chase Lemonds, had his phone stolen at his very first music festival back in 2019. It was Day 1 of EDC Orlando—a festival with over 200k+ attendees throughout the weekend—and Chase immediately lost his group in the sea of people,” co-founder and CEO Carter Fowler, told Hypepotamus. While wandering around EDC, Lemonds thought about what technology could be created to “keep people safe, help them experience true freedom at these events for the first time, and build precious memories with the people they love” while enjoying music festivals.
How Totem Compass Works
The Totem Compass runs on the company’s proprietary Unity Mesh Network.
Each compass can run 10-14 hours on Vibe Mode (which syncs animations to music) and over 24 hours on Eco Mode. The device charges in around 45 minutes via USB-C.
“The peer-to-peer range between any two Totems goes over 1000 meters, but our Unity Mesh Network extends that range for all Totems in the network, regardless of whether they are part of your group. Each additional Totem in the area extends your own range, even if you aren’t bonded with them. This means that in most event situations, the range between two Totems isn’t particularly relevant as the mesh network gives them near-limitless range at the event,” Fowler explained to Hypepotamus.
Totems also include an SOS feature, which ensures “users can stay effortlessly connected with a reliable range, unbreakable bonds, and a simple, intuitive interface,” according to a press release.
Building Viral Consumer Products
With just spending $4,000 on ads in the last 14 months, Totem has seen most of its success through 19 viral social media videos that racked up over 125 million views and two million shares.
Most importantly, those viral social media moments turned into over $1.5 million in pre-orders.
As of this month, Totem has shipped out over 23,000 Totem Compasses to over 60 countries. 60 percent of customers are in the United States, with other strong customer bases in Germany, UK, South Africa, Canada, Australia, France, Netherlands, and Brazil.
“Perhaps the biggest reason for our success with early customer acquisition is the inherent network effects built into our product, pricing structure, and marketing. From the beginning, we never expected to have much of a marketing budget so Chase and I designed everything to leverage network effects so the product could help sell itself,” Fowler added.
Totem Compasses get more valuable the more people you know who have them, and the product becomes more affordable on a per-unit basis if a group buys together.
Totem’s Big Pre-Seed
Now, investors are taking note of Totem’s viral growth.
Totem recently announced the close of its $1.3 million pre-seed round from a group of global investors.
The team brought in checks on a rolling basis over the last twelve months. Three of the approximately thirty investors are based in Chattanooga, according to Fowler.
The majority of investors were Totem customers who reached out about investing through Totem Tuesday, the startup’s weekly newsletter that has garnered 25,000 readers in 15 months.
“In many aspects Totem Tuesday is the beating heart of our brand, with open rates exceeding 50% historically,” Fowler added. “Many of our greatest feature ideas and design decisions were shaped directly by feedback from our “Tribe” via Totem Tuesday.”
Each newsletter blast shares three accomplishments, two company learnings, and one thing the team is looking forward to. Fowler added that the newsletter’s transparency helped potential investors see “the vision, the consistency, the perseverance, the humility, and the momentum [of Totem] with their own eyes,” Fowler added.
All of Totem’s employees are based in Chattanooga and work out of the startup’s office in the city’s Southside District.
“We have a genuine opportunity here to write Chattanooga’s biggest ever Startup Success Story, and I hope this community will rally behind us as we seek to build one of the greatest Event Tech companies in the world,” said Fowler.
