Highlights:

  • Partnering with Dropbox will provide users with a calendar that not only tracks others’ activities but also understands their own engagements.
  • Reclaim competes with various calendaring and scheduling automation platforms, such as Calendly, Clockwise Inc., and Doodle AG.

The file-sharing giant Dropbox Inc. has acquired Reclaim.ai, a Portland-based startup that leverages artificial intelligence to manage schedules through its calendar app.

Established in 2019, Reclaim’s calendar tool helps identify optimal times for recurring routines, schedules tasks, tracks time, and even buffers breaks for travel and rest between meetings for teams and organizations.

Reclaim founders Henry Shapiro and Patrick Lightbody shared on X that the app is now utilized by 320,000 users across over 43,000 companies, including prominent names like PagerDuty, Zapier, and GitHub.

While Dropbox didn’t disclose the terms of the acquisition, the founders noted that all 22 employees would be joining the storage giant, along with the entire service. They also mentioned plans to continue investing in the app, developing new features, and enhancing the user experience.

“We started Reclaim by focusing on the calendar because we believed — and still do — that it’s perhaps the most critical system that individuals, teams, and companies have for both understanding what’s being worked on and for taking action. We also believe that it only gets better with increased intelligence, automation and humanity,” the founders reported.

The company had secured USD 9.5 million in funding from investors such as Calendly LLC, Index Ventures, Yummy Ventures, and Gradient Ventures. Reclaim’s competitors include calendaring and scheduling automation providers like Calendly, Clockwise Inc., and Doodle AG.

Shapiro and Lightbody stated that they were drawn to Dropbox by a 2018 letter from CEO Drew Houston, in which he shared his vision for a calendar designed to improve people’s lives by efficiently organizing their day.

“Imagine getting to work in the morning to find your calendar reorganized so you have a three-hour block of time to actually focus. Imagine starting your day and seeing the perfect to-do list — one based on a deep understanding of your priorities and your team’s priorities,” Houston said.

The founders of Reclaim noted that the rise of generative AI now enables the creation of such advanced tools. By partnering with Dropbox, users will benefit from a calendar that not only tracks others’ schedules but also understands their commitments. Generative AI allows users to express their needs, with the technology handling all the behind-the-scenes scheduling tasks.

Reclaim currently integrates exclusively with Google Calendar, but the team has made it a top priority to add support for all users of Microsoft Outlook in the coming months. Additionally, the company is developing an AI-powered assistant called Reclaim Assistant.