Professional Messaging Platform VentureApp Raises $4M

VentureApp, a messaging platform for business professionals, announced that it has raised $4 million in venture funding. The investment was led by early-stage technology venture firm Accomplice, which previously invested $2 million in the startup’s seed round. Boston Seed Capital and Fullstack Ventures, as well as several individual angel investors, also participated in the round.

VentureApp was founded in 2015 by five entrepreneurs: Chase Garbarino, Kevin McCarthy, and Greg Gomer, who previously co-founded Streetwise Media together, as well as Boris Revsin and Jared Stenquist, who are also the founders of gaming site Dailybreak. The company is challenging LinkedIn and Facebook and aiming to be the central hub for business-related messages and chats. The platform allows users to import their contacts from multiple sources, including Gmail, Outlook, and LinkedIn. Once users complete their contacts lists, they can start chatting with any person individually on VentureApp. Users no longer have to switch between different chat apps and social networks; instead, VentureApp becomes a dedicated business communication platform.

Consumer-oriented chat platforms are growing faster than ever, with market incumbents like Snapchat and Facebook Messenger rolling out new features every couple of weeks, not to mention new services popping up that address niche markets like gaming and family chats. But no messaging platform has aimed to dominate business messaging, an apparent market void that VentureApp plans to fill. The startup is also attempting to address the gripes many have expressed about LinkedIn, the largest professional social network. LinkedIn does offer messaging functions, but its chat interface is considerably less intuitive than everyday chat experiences people have on apps like Facebook Messenger. And many LinkedIn users have been turned off by the platform’s InMail feature, which leads to unsolicited messages that quickly fill up inboxes. By contrast, VentureApp is designed as an opt-in messaging platform on which recipients must grant permission to unknown message requests before any chatting sessions can begin.

“From the beginning, our team has been focused on breaking down some of the barriers to entering the innovation economy,” said Chase Garbarino, co-founder and CEO of VentureApp in the company’s official announcement. “Not only do we want to make external business communication more efficient and enjoyable, we want to make the community more accessible, which we believe is imperative to drive economic growth and positive returns for more people.”

According to the company’s official announcement, several thousand users from more than 2,000 companies in Boston and New York, including employees at DraftKings, HubSpot, and Drizly, have been using VentureApp. With the new financing, VentureApp will become publicly available after previously being invite-only and will roll out to professionals nationwide.