Volt Secures $3M Seed Funding to Power Next-Gen SMS Cost Reduction & Compliance Infrastructure
22 Mayo 2024 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Category-defining developer suite enables
software companies to save money and time by optimizing and
streamlining SMS programs through a centralized platform
Volt provides proactive delivery reporting and
automates number registration compliance amid an increasingly
complex regulatory environment for SMS
Volt, the leading Messaging Operations (Ops) infrastructure
platform that enables software companies to integrate with multiple
SMS providers and streamline number registration compliance and
delivery reporting, today announced the closing of its $3 million
seed round. The round was led by Mercury, with participation from
Atento Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures, Stout Street Capital, and
Yellow Rocks. The new funding will enable Volt to further enhance
and accelerate its product development and strategically expand its
team.
The SMS marketplace has grown significantly in recent years as a
result of increased marketing and customer support efforts,
evidenced by a 20.3% compound annual growth rate from 2019 to 2025.
SMS is becoming the predominant method of communication among U.S.
consumers, with average open rates around 98%. The rapid growth of
the SMS market has coincided with recent regulatory shifts across
U.S. phone carriers aimed at decreasing the level of spam messages
but has made it nearly impossible for SMS providers and everyday
brands to keep up.
Volt, launched in the middle of 2022, was founded by Martin
Langelo Lien and Matt Morfopoulos. The idea for the business was
born out of the founders’ experience with the inefficiencies of
compliance for SMS operations firsthand while running a text
marketing company for three and a half years, during which they
recognized the fundamental need for infrastructure to ensure
compliance was maintained across carriers. Volt was built to help
companies manage the complexities of large-scale text messaging and
significantly reduce the engineering hours spent on the upkeep of
internal infrastructure. Through Volt’s centralized API, companies
can effectively manage all of their SMS providers in one place,
guide brands through the hurdles of registering phone numbers, and
provide real-time SMS deliverability insights to ensure issues are
resolved efficiently across providers. Volt is based in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.
"Companies have been struggling with SMS even before phone
carriers implemented the 10 Digit Long Code regulation in the
spring of 2021. Now with increased complexities around regulations,
it is more necessary than ever to safeguard companies from
thousands of dollars in fines and fees for not abiding by
rapidly-evolving rules and protocols,” said Martin Langelo Lien,
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Volt. "We started Volt to
address these problems, starting with the most pressing issue:
getting a phone number registered with the carriers in the first
place. With no support from phone carriers or traditional SMS
providers, software companies are forced to waste millions of
dollars on critical but repeatable work. We are grateful for the
support of our dedicated investors to tackle this problem head-on
and look forward to continuing to build and advance our product
suite.”
Notably, Volt has achieved operational profitability and has
exceptional revenue growth, increasing over 100% in the first
quarter of 2024 alone. Volt has partnered with some of the largest
programmable communications technology companies in the market,
including Twilio, Vonage, Telnyx, and Bandwidth, in addition to a
wide range of media, technology, and two-factor authentication
platforms. Volt works with a growing number of software vendors to
help their customers stay compliant with carrier standards while
delivering positive and authentic experiences within their SMS
operations. Nearly half a billion messages have been processed on
Volt’s platform thus far.
“As we scale our team and capabilities, there are a ton of
exciting opportunities we can tackle within the Messaging Ops
space. With this latest round of funding we will continue to drive
awareness around messaging ops, and stay focused on solving our
partner's biggest issues today, while supporting phone carriers'
goals of a spam-free SMS channel” said Matt Morfopoulos, Co-Founder
and Head of Growth at Volt.
“Volt is defining a needed category within SMS Messaging
Operations and we have been impressed with their rapid success and
disciplined approach to growth,” said Heath Butler, Venture Partner
at Mercury Fund. “Developer time is often wasted on building and
maintaining SMS deliverability and compliance adherence, and we are
confident that Volt will continue to serve as a trusted provider,
improving infrastructure for SMS solutions for years to come.”
“Businesses not only continue to face challenges in managing
their SMS operations but are also up against a looming regulatory
deadline to ensure that carrier compliance standards are met,
exacerbating a critical infrastructure gap that has existed for
some time in the SMS industry,” said Salil Deshpande, General
Partner at Uncorrelated Ventures. “Volt, founded by a highly
technical team, delivers efficiency, automation, and cost-savings
to ease this burden for software companies. I’m excited to be
supporting Volt at this critical juncture and am looking forward to
supporting their growth.”
About Volt
Volt is the leading Messaging Operations (Ops) infrastructure
platform that enables software companies to integrate with multiple
SMS providers and streamline number registration compliance and
delivery reporting. Volt’s suite of solutions saves companies
thousands of wasted engineering hours on building and maintaining
their SMS compliance. To learn more about Volt, visit
https://www.textvolt.com/.
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