Confide

Howard Lerman and Jon Brod co-founded Confide in 2013. They previously co-founded Yext, the publicly-traded digital knowledge management platform. Their experience building and scaling an enterprise software company informed Confide's subscription-based business model rather than an ad-supported consumer play.

Confide raised venture capital from institutional firms including WndrCo (Jeffrey Katzenberg's holding company), Google Ventures, and First Round Capital. The company completed multiple funding rounds during its operational history, though specific round sizes were not uniformly disclosed.

Confide's core intellectual property was a reading interface that revealed only a few words at a time and blocked the device's native screenshot functionality. A recipient would drag a finger across the screen to reveal the message line-by-line, making it difficult for a second device to photograph the entire message cleanly.

Confide ceased operations. The company maintained a long independent run relative to its venture-backed messaging peers but ultimately faced competitive pressure from larger platforms adding ephemeral features. The founders' focus returned to their primary enterprise-software interests at Yext and subsequent ventures.

Confide targeted professionals in regulated and confidential industries — investment bankers, M&A lawyers, hedge fund traders, government aides, and journalists. The product was used by officials in the Trump White House, according to reporting by Axios and other outlets, which brought the app significant attention as a political-communications tool.