Founder Collective

Founder Collective is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2009 with roots in Cambridge, Massachusetts and offices in New York. The firm is built by entrepreneurs who have founded and exited technology companies, and it aims to back founders by providing practical capital and guidance to navigate the risks of venture funding. It concentrates on early investments in technology companies, with an emphasis on software and information technology, and it makes bets across the United States and beyond, though its roots are on the East Coast. The team partners with portfolio companies to help them scale, often supporting startups that seek modest initial financings. Through its network and hands-on approach, Founder Collective seeks to partner with ambitious teams to grow durable, technology-driven businesses.

Joe DeFilippi

CFO

David Frankel

Managing Partner

Amanda Herson

General Partner

Zach Klein

Venture Partner

Eric Paley

Managing Partner

Past deals in Messaging

Regal

Venture Round in 2024
Regal is the AI Agent Platform. Transform your customer communications with AI Agents that are personalized to your company and customers. Regal gives every company the tools to build AI Agents that are connected to your data, easy to customize and monitor, always-available, and ready to take action. Power better support, sales and operations – with way less effort.

Regal

Series A in 2022
Regal is the AI Agent Platform. Transform your customer communications with AI Agents that are personalized to your company and customers. Regal gives every company the tools to build AI Agents that are connected to your data, easy to customize and monitor, always-available, and ready to take action. Power better support, sales and operations – with way less effort.

ClassTag

Seed Round in 2020
ClassTag Inc. is a developer of a parent engagement platform that facilitates communication and collaboration between teachers and parents. Founded in 2015 and based in New York, ClassTag offers a web and mobile application that allows teachers to connect with families through various channels, including email, text messaging, and printed materials. The platform features tools for direct messaging, class announcements, photo and video sharing, and event coordination, which help parents track their child's classroom progress. Additionally, ClassTag promotes parent engagement through its ClassTag Rewards program, incentivizing involvement with classroom supplies and learning products. The service enhances the educational experience by streamlining communication and enabling teachers to focus on classroom activities rather than administrative tasks.

ClassTag

Seed Round in 2020
ClassTag Inc. is a developer of a parent engagement platform that facilitates communication and collaboration between teachers and parents. Founded in 2015 and based in New York, ClassTag offers a web and mobile application that allows teachers to connect with families through various channels, including email, text messaging, and printed materials. The platform features tools for direct messaging, class announcements, photo and video sharing, and event coordination, which help parents track their child's classroom progress. Additionally, ClassTag promotes parent engagement through its ClassTag Rewards program, incentivizing involvement with classroom supplies and learning products. The service enhances the educational experience by streamlining communication and enabling teachers to focus on classroom activities rather than administrative tasks.

Allma

Seed Round in 2020
Allma develops a collaboration enhancement tool that optimizes workflows, simplifies task management, and improves team communication. Its AI-powered platform summarizes threads, analyzes data, suggests actions, centralizes communication, and offers insights to streamline processes.

ClassTag

Seed Round in 2018
ClassTag Inc. is a developer of a parent engagement platform that facilitates communication and collaboration between teachers and parents. Founded in 2015 and based in New York, ClassTag offers a web and mobile application that allows teachers to connect with families through various channels, including email, text messaging, and printed materials. The platform features tools for direct messaging, class announcements, photo and video sharing, and event coordination, which help parents track their child's classroom progress. Additionally, ClassTag promotes parent engagement through its ClassTag Rewards program, incentivizing involvement with classroom supplies and learning products. The service enhances the educational experience by streamlining communication and enabling teachers to focus on classroom activities rather than administrative tasks.

GetHuman

Venture Round in 2016
GetHuman is an online consumer service platform that provides tools and information to help people resolve customer service issues, including step-by-step guides, access to company contact details, and options to review and compare service providers. Users can skip long holds, call from a browser, and receive guidance for common problems, while a team of experts can coordinate with customer care representatives and follow up on users' behalf to save time, money, and frustration. Founded in 2005 and based in Boston, GetHuman concentrates on simplifying the process of reaching the right support and obtaining quicker resolutions for consumer inquiries.

Troops

Series A in 2016
Troops is a developer of a revenue communications platform that enhances sales velocity, forecast accuracy, visibility, and collaboration for sales teams. The platform integrates with Salesforce to provide real-time transparency around sales data and operates as a Slackbot, enabling users to configure reports, communicate deal wins, and access information on both standard and custom Salesforce objects. By employing artificial intelligence, Troops allows users to create customizable notifications, view, and update data across various applications. This functionality helps sales teams receive actionable pipeline alerts and increases their overall sales activity.

ToutApp

Series B in 2015
ToutApp, Inc. is a software company that specializes in sales communications solutions designed to enhance the productivity of sales teams. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York, the company offers a platform that enables users to streamline communication, track leads, utilize templates, and access real-time analytics for lead scoring. This functionality allows sales teams to generate more opportunities and close deals more efficiently. ToutApp serves a diverse clientele, including both enterprises and non-profit organizations, with notable users such as Citrix and ProCore. In 2017, ToutApp became a subsidiary of Marketo, further expanding its capabilities in the sales software domain.

Drift

Series A in 2015
Drift is a revenue acceleration platform that leverages conversational marketing and sales techniques to enhance business growth and customer lifetime value. The platform is utilized by over 50,000 companies to synchronize sales and marketing efforts, providing a cohesive customer experience. Drift enables businesses to engage website visitors in real-time through the use of bots and artificial intelligence, facilitating live chat sessions that gather immediate customer feedback. This functionality allows clients to convert website traffic into qualified sales meetings, streamline the sales cycle, and create a contemporary buying experience for potential customers.

ToutApp

Series A in 2013
ToutApp, Inc. is a software company that specializes in sales communications solutions designed to enhance the productivity of sales teams. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York, the company offers a platform that enables users to streamline communication, track leads, utilize templates, and access real-time analytics for lead scoring. This functionality allows sales teams to generate more opportunities and close deals more efficiently. ToutApp serves a diverse clientele, including both enterprises and non-profit organizations, with notable users such as Citrix and ProCore. In 2017, ToutApp became a subsidiary of Marketo, further expanding its capabilities in the sales software domain.

Burner

Series A in 2013
Burner, established in 2012 and based in Los Angeles, is a mobile software company specializing in privacy and communication management. It develops the Burner app, which allows users to obtain and manage additional, temporary phone numbers for voice, SMS, and MMS communications. Users can acquire multiple numbers, each functioning as a private line on their iPhone or Android device, and choose to keep or 'burn' (discard) them as needed. The app also offers features like SMS scam filtering and monitoring.

flok

Series A in 2013
flok LTD is a customer engagement and loyalty platform that enables consumers to access loyalty plans and rewards from various vendors through a mobile application available on iOS and Android. Originally launched in 2011 as a digital punch card app, flok has since expanded its offerings to include a comprehensive suite of customer communication tools, such as chatbots, AI-assisted chat, automated messaging, and CRM services. The platform serves a diverse range of industries, including food and drink, beauty, retail, health and fitness, entertainment, and services. Headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Tel Aviv, flok collaborates with partners that range from major retailers to small businesses across multiple countries. The company, formerly known as LoyalBlocks Ltd, was incorporated in 2008 and has operated as a subsidiary of Wix.com Ltd since 2017.

ToutApp

Seed Round in 2013
ToutApp, Inc. is a software company that specializes in sales communications solutions designed to enhance the productivity of sales teams. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York, the company offers a platform that enables users to streamline communication, track leads, utilize templates, and access real-time analytics for lead scoring. This functionality allows sales teams to generate more opportunities and close deals more efficiently. ToutApp serves a diverse clientele, including both enterprises and non-profit organizations, with notable users such as Citrix and ProCore. In 2017, ToutApp became a subsidiary of Marketo, further expanding its capabilities in the sales software domain.

Gyft

Seed Round in 2012
Gyft is a mobile application that facilitates the buying, storing, sending, and redeeming of gift cards from various retailers. The platform allows users to manage their gift cards conveniently from their mobile devices, including the option to upload existing plastic gift cards. Gyft is integrated with social media, enabling users to easily send gift cards and messages to friends during special occasions. The application is available for download at no cost, providing a user-friendly solution for gift card management.

Couple

Seed Round in 2012
Couple is an app just for the two of you. It helps you stay connected, and feel close to each other. Whether it's texting, sharing videos, photos, sketching together and more, Couple let's your partner know that you're thinking about them. Couple was part of the YCombinator W2012 batch, and was formerly named Pair until they renamed to Couple on January 31st, 2013.

Blippy

Seed Round in 2012
Blippy is a new app that makes it dead simple to find animated GIFs for texting, Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.

Hall

Seed Round in 2011
Hall (formerly CompanyLine) helps teams and companies communicate in real-time. Our all-in-one unified communications app has everything your company needs to communicate and get things done. Hall was part of **[AngelPad](http://angelpad.org) #4** in 2012.

Hall

Seed Round in 2011
Hall (formerly CompanyLine) helps teams and companies communicate in real-time. Our all-in-one unified communications app has everything your company needs to communicate and get things done. Hall was part of **[AngelPad](http://angelpad.org) #4** in 2012.

ToutApp

Seed Round in 2011
ToutApp, Inc. is a software company that specializes in sales communications solutions designed to enhance the productivity of sales teams. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York, the company offers a platform that enables users to streamline communication, track leads, utilize templates, and access real-time analytics for lead scoring. This functionality allows sales teams to generate more opportunities and close deals more efficiently. ToutApp serves a diverse clientele, including both enterprises and non-profit organizations, with notable users such as Citrix and ProCore. In 2017, ToutApp became a subsidiary of Marketo, further expanding its capabilities in the sales software domain.

GroupMe

Series B in 2011
GroupMe Inc. is a New York-based company that develops and operates a group messaging application designed to facilitate communication among users, including those without smartphones. Launched in 2010, the platform allows users to easily connect with friends, family, and coworkers through push notifications or SMS. GroupMe's services include group messaging, conference calling, and location and photo sharing, enabling seamless interaction within social networks. Since its inception, the company has experienced significant growth, processing billions of messages and expanding its team to 25 employees. Acquired by Skype Global, GroupMe operates with a degree of autonomy, maintaining an entrepreneurial culture while aiming to become a primary communications provider for a large user base.

Tello Applications

Seed Round in 2010
Tello is committed to helping companies improve customer service by providing real-time insight into the customer experience. With Tello™ mobile and social applications in hand, people everywhere can express their satisfaction with recent experiences and purchases. Tello then aggregates these sentiments and provides additional analysis. Using Tello, businesses of all sizes can continuously improve service by engaging customers in conversation, resolving issues, and monitoring employee ratings, comments, and analytics. Tello was founded in 2010 in Palo Alto, California by experienced entrepreneur Joe Beninato. Tello is backed by a world-class group of early-stage investors, including Jon Callaghan of True Ventures, Ron Conway of SV Angel, Mark Goines, Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Eric Paley of Founder Collective, Shervin Pishevar of SGN, Naval Ravikant of Venture Hacks, Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital, Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, and Russ Siegelman.

Giiv

Series A in 2010
Giiv, Inc. is an online platform that facilitates gift-giving through a text message system, enabling users to send tangible gifts to friends instantly. The service allows recipients to redeem gifts at the point-of-sale of partner retailers across the United States. Originally established as MoboGift, Giiv was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. By leveraging mobile technology, Giiv streamlines the gifting process, making it convenient for users to share personalized gifts with their loved ones.

Hot Potato

Series A in 2009
Hot Potato is a technology company that specializes in enhancing the experience of live events through real-time social collaboration. It provides a platform where friends and fans can connect, share their perspectives, and enjoy each other's contributions during events. The company focuses on creating tools that make participating in events more engaging and fun by facilitating interactions among groups who share an interest in the same experiences as they unfold.
Spot something off? Help us improve by flagging any incorrect or outdated information. Just email us at support@teaserclub.com. Your feedback is most welcome.