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Universal Messaging Platform ‘Front’ Raises $59 Million in Series C Funding

Front-eers at an offsite in Palm Springs in April 2019 for a week of ATV riding, team bonding, and customer service.
Front-eers at an offsite in Palm Springs in April 2019 for a week of ATV riding, team bonding, and customer service. (Source: Front blog)

Multi-channel communications and messaging platform Front has raised $59 million in their Series C funding round! This Martech Funding was led by Sequoia Capital, in partnership with some of the biggest leaders in the future of workspace. Founded in 2013, the SF-based startup has raised close to $140 million in 6 funding rounds. The Series B funding in January 2018 was their biggest raise– $66 million, led by Sequoia Capital.

MARTECH RADAR

Front Co-Founder and CEO Mathilde Collin announced the Series C funding details in her official company blog. Mathilde wrote, “Our Series C is unique. long with Sequoia Capital, it’s led by some of the biggest leaders in the future of workspace — including executives from Atlassian, Okta, Qualtrics, and Zoom.”

She added, “We firmly believe email can do so much more for people and businesses, and support from these respected leaders further proves the size of the opportunity ahead of us.”

Currently, the Front app fits into the unique space in martech. The email and messaging platform provide the bridge the Marketing, Sales, Customer Support, IT and Workforce Communication.

CEO Mathilde outlined the three distinct market trends for her industry. These are:

  1. Consumers are demanding a more genuine and personalized brand-customer interaction.
  2. Businesses scaling their efforts to magnify efficiency and effectiveness.
  3. Employee experience management, powered by automation anything models.

Apart from the capital raised, Front also saw participation from the Customer Experience industry. These include,

  • Atlassian co-CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes
  • Atlassian President Jay Simons
  • Okta executive vice-chairman, COO, and co-founder Frederic Kerrest
  • Qualtrics co-founder and CEO Ryan Smith
  • Qualtrics co-founder and CTO Jared Smith
  • Zoom CEO Eric Yuan

Final Hello to the Traditional Email Platforms

Email marketing has fallen short of expectations, especially when it comes to delivering dynamic CX to subscribers. It’s true that the traditional email models were “never built for business”, and they are proving to be a pain for email marketing teams. Emails often find themselves isolated in the whole dynamic landscape of unified communications, which raised its level with mobile apps and workspace automation tools.

Front’s new funding will change that.

And it will not happen overnight. The Front-runners are backed by a solid performance in 2019. The team by 55% to 159 Fronteers, serving more than 5,500 companies in 96 countries across the globe.

Today, Front app integrates with over 50 marketing and sales collaboration apps, including the Meetingbird calendar app. This integration schema allows users to access the tools directly from your inbox.

What’s in Store for 2020?

Front’s product team is committed to developing a better, resourceful Email app for B2B customers. The streamlined product will empower marketing, sales and customer support teams to fully-optimize their email inboxes, messaging boards, and other unified communication platforms, including the ones used to interact with team members on-site or at remote locations.

Upcoming email marketing feature updates would be along these lines–

– Load balancing with automated workflow management.

– Rule-based templates with pre-designed customization for various workflow scenarios.

– SLAs for multiple tags and rules.

– Enriched CRM filters to validate data from Salesforce or Segment.

– Contextual messaging boards to pre-empt user response so that agents can spend more time listening to customer’s needs.

A new;y designed firebrand feature will also allow users to work with Front app in offline mode. The Offline mode will make Front’s desktop and mobile apps available anywhere you want to get work done, whether you’re at your desk or on the go.

(To share your insights, please write to us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com)

Sudipto Ghosh
Sudipto Ghosh
Sudipto Ghosh is a former Director of Content at iTech Series.

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