Brian Acton persuaded five former Yahoo friends to invest $250,000 in WhatsApp's seed funding. Their backing helped move the project from an uncertain experiment toward a functioning company.
Acton and Jan Koum had worked together at Yahoo and left the company in 2007. After traveling and considering other opportunities, they began developing WhatsApp in 2009. Acton was initially working on another startup idea, but he encouraged Koum not to abandon WhatsApp when early versions were unstable and frequently crashed.
In October 2009, Acton brought in the five former Yahoo colleagues as seed investors. He officially joined WhatsApp on November 1 and became a co-founder. The investment gave the young company money to cover development and operating costs during a period when the application had only a small user base.
The figure is sometimes confused with later venture financing. Sequoia Capital invested about $8 million in 2011 and another $50 million in 2013, but those rounds were separate from Acton's initial seed funding.