Montréal-based business messaging app Smooch Technologies Inc has secured $10 million in seed-stage financing. The round was led by Canadian venture capital firms Real Ventures and iNovia Capital, and joined by TA Associates and the startup’s founders. Spun out of Radialpoint last year, Smooch provides a messaging platform that allows businesses to converse with users on mobile and the web, creating customer engagement and mobile commerce opportunities. It will use the funds raised to expand support for consumer messaging channels and business software vendors, and to build its team. Smooch is led by CEO and Co-Founder Hamnett Hill.
PRESS RELEASE
Smooch Raises C$10 Million in Seed Round to Expand its Conversation Cloud
Startup Brings the Power of B2C Messaging to Business and Software Vendors
San Francisco – August 9, 2016 – Smooch, which helps leading companies facilitate rich customer conversations over multiple messaging and communication platforms, announced today that it has secured $10 million CAD in an institutional seed round. The financing is a coinvestment led by Real Ventures and iNovia Capital, with participation from TA Associates and Smooch’s founders.
Smooch will use this financing round to expand its support for consumer messaging channels and business software vendors, and to continue to build its team. The company is currently hiring for more than 20 positions in San Francisco and Montreal, including senior sales, product marketing, and engineering positions.
Smooch’s unified messaging platform, the Smooch Conversation CloudSM lets companies use their existing business software and processes to have rich conversations with their customers through messaging apps and SMS, to websites, mobile apps and more. Smooch integrates with the most popular consumer messaging channels such as Facebook Messenger, LINE, WeChat, Kik, Telegram, Twilio and others.
Dozens of business software makers, such as FrontApp, Slack and ZenDesk, are integrating with the Smooch Conversation CloudSM to enable thousands of companies, such as Frank + Oak, Harry’s and U-Haul, to create compelling messaging experiences for their customers.
Hamnett Hill, CEO and Co-Founder of Smooch, said: “Beyond making it easy for businesses to have rich conversations with their customers, Smooch provides a 360-degree view of all conversations with their customers, creating a more human relationship. This financing will support our ongoing investments in our team and partnerships, so we can help even more companies reach more customers on more messaging platforms, with more compelling experiences.”
Chris Arsenault, Managing Partner at iNovia Capital, said: “Smooch is the first messaging company to offer B2Cs a fast, cost effective infrastructure to offer and scale messaging. This emerging market presents a huge opportunity to make an impact on how consumers interact with their favorite brands.”
Chris Messina, inventor of the hashtag and Developer Experience Lead at Uber, said: “Conversational commerce is happening to every consumer-facing industry. Businesses that meet their customers where they are — i.e. in contextually relevant conversational channels — will win. Smooch gets this better than anyone else.”
About Smooch
Smooch is the best way for companies to have rich messaging conversations with customers wherever they are. Thousands of businesses rely on Smooch to manage millions of customer conversations. Visit us at smooch.io and see our video at smooch.io/is.
Media kit:
www.brandfolder.com/smooch
Media contact:
Beth Thouin
beth@smooch.io
Photo courtesy of Smooch Technologies Inc
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