A Reno-based startup with ties to Arizona has landed a new round of capital to expand its text messaging software platform for small and medium-sized businesses.
MessageDesk closed a $1.6 million seed round led by Reno Seed Fund with participation from Valley-based AZ-VC, Acadian Capital Ventures, Arizona Tech Investors, Desert Angels and Sierra Angels.
The company will use the funds to add artificial intelligence-driven sentiment analysis, team chatbots and voice-to-text to its platform. It also plans to expand its marketing and sales team, said co-founder and CEO Clint Vernon.
“... That's really what the seed round funding is about — pushing on the gas and getting us up to a point and size where it makes sense to do a strong (series) A round,” Vernon told AZ Inno. “Basically, we're going continue to add channels to our shared team inbox to bring all conversations together. At the same time as we do that, we’ll scale our marketing, sales and customer success (operations).”
MessageDesk’s platform helps businesses text-enable their phone lines as well as send mass text message broadcasts and route those conversations across their entire organization.
The platform is used by health care staffing agencies, logistics providers, school administrators and others. The company has established product-market fit with more than 600 businesses, including about a dozen in the Phoenix area, Vernon said.
MessageDesk is a portfolio company of AZ-VC, which operates the largest venture capital fund in Arizona and is led by former PayPal executive Jack Selby.
"Our investment in MessageDesk is a testament to the potential we see in their innovative solution and business model, especially considering the fluctuating economic conditions and shift to not only more mobile work but mobile work that demands greater efficiency and coordination to deliver services when and where they are most needed," Ben Brockwell, a partner at AZ-VC, said in a statement. “MessageDesk’s focus on streamlining the user experience and its strategic growth plans align well with our investment philosophy."
MessageDesk considers expansion to Arizona
Vernon is a former Army veteran and Arizona State University graduate. Prior to co-founding MessageDesk in 2018, he spent a large portion of his professional career as a certified public accountant and manager of IT consulting teams.
Vernon's idea for MessageDesk was sparked his family's residential housekeeping business, which was operating in Nevada, Utah and Texas and needed a better way to manage its communication with customers, he said.
“My brother Cory was working in the family business at the time and was trying to figure out a solution for this and was like, ‘You know what, I think I'm just going to try to build it.’ So he really started the project,” Vernon said. “I was living in Texas at the time, working as a CPA full-time. I saw what Cory was doing with the family business and I said, ‘Man, I think if we need this, other people need it too and we're not the only ones."
MessageDesk, which has 11 employees, aims to reach more than $1 million in annual recurring revenue this year and exceed 1,000 customers by early 2024.
Vernon said he remains deeply rooted in the Valley tech ecosystem and may consider expanding MessageDesk to Arizona in the future as he has several clients in the state.
“I have a lot of connections in Phoenix. I've spent a lot of my life there and it has always been near and dear to my heart,” he said. “We're excited to be working with AZ-VC and the whole Arizona ecosystem.”
