Caroline Clark’s first word was "up."
Every child’s first word is seismic, and it was especially so for Clark: At the age of two, she was diagnosed as deaf. In a taped 2019 talk from her time in business school at Stanford, Clark tells the story of how her mother taught her to speak, starting word by word. And because no one’s more equipped to improve communication than someone who has truly spent time thinking about it deeply, Clark is now the cofounder and CEO of Arcade, a visual storytelling platform.
"That experience learning how to speak from my mother has taught me how precious it is to choose every word," she said. "I’ve used words to tell myself what’s possible. They’re powerful. In many ways, I think Arcade is helping you achieve that power—not only coming up with the right words but showing them in the most creative way possible."
It’s fitting that, in some sense, Clark’s job is helping companies find their voices, visuals, and stories. Arcade’s customers currently include Salesforce, Zapier, Atlassian, New Relic, Superhuman, and Carta, all of whom use the platform to develop interactive demos.
"I think that people underestimate Arcade," Clark told Fortune. "They say 'Oh, it's just a demo tool,' but I think the word ‘demo’ is limiting. It’s really about content, collaboration, and creativity."
The company probably won’t be underestimated much longer, with more than 14,000 companies using the platform—and a new milestone. Arcade has raised a $14 million Series A, led by Kleiner Perkins, Fortune can exclusively report. Upfront Ventures and Foundation Capital, both existing investors, also participated in the round.
Founded in 2021, Arcade draws inspiration from video games in both its name and product, which includes features like pulsating dots and load times. That’s not an accident—Clark and I talked about comic books (she recently read video game designer Jordan Mechner’s graphic memoir Replay) and her belief in "playfulness and going through the product as adventure."
Aditi Maliwal, Upfront Ventures partner, wrote the first check into Arcade in March 2021, and she’s watched Clark grow the company from a product into an enterprise sales company.
"It’s really hard to cross that chasm and it takes a long time, but she’s a force of nature," said Maliwal, who’s known Clark for seven years. "I wear this bracelet every day that says 'resilience' and, to me, Caroline signifies resilience. She truly had to learn how to hear and how to speak. She’s learned how to hear through her eyes."
Arcade’s opportunity fundamentally ties back to "the sea of software everywhere we go," said Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid. Clark had for years specifically wanted to work with Hamid, drawn to his track record investing in gorgeous workplace efficiency juggernauts like Slack, Figma, and Box. Hamid, who will join Arcade’s board, draws a parallel between Arcade and the evolution of tools like Slack, which brought a new level of visual and interactive communication to workplaces.
"What I love about Arcade is that it's creating this market where, if you describe the category, it doesn’t sound all that interesting," he told Fortune. "Enterprise chat doesn't sound interesting, but when you overlay a great product you can use, it drives some enjoyment—like communicating via Slack ten years ago with colleagues when the alternative was chat inside of Gmail or text messaging. There’s a richness these tools offer… and in the same vein, Arcade is very powerful yet beautiful in the way it helps you tell stories."
And, yeah, there’s an AI angle here—Arcade is currently investing in AI features like synthetic voice, automated translations, and recommendations that enhance the content creation process. But it’s all in the service of something that Clark speaks about more clearly than just about any professional storyteller I know: Precise communication not only matters but also makes a difference in real-world outcomes.
"This is a really big statement, but broadly there’s so much happiness in words, but also pain that comes from miscommunication when you hear the wrong set of words," said Clark. "You hear the right set of words, and you’re inspired and motivated. It really matters because there’s just so much more joy that could come from being measured and thoughtful about words."
To tell a story, you need to learn to hear, listen, and then talk. In its way, Arcade is about learning to speak—and it’s ready to be heard.
ICYMI…My colleague Jessica Mathews just published a banger interview with the inimitable Palmer Luckey, and my newly minted Term Sheet co-conspirator Leo Schwartz scooped Quiet Capital’s new $377 million fund. We also released our Fortune 50 AI Innovators list, featuring lots of startup names you’ll know, from Anthropic to Glean.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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