Cloud Startup Telgorithm Nabs $3.8 Million to Further Expand Its Messaging Services

By Adriaan Brits | Tuesday, 15 February 2022 | Business, Tech

Telgorithm, a startup company behind a cloud-based messaging platform, announced it has secured $3.8 million in a seed funding round led by Bonfire Ventures. Daher Capital, Amplify.LA, and I2BF also took part in the business funding round.

Creating the Best-Possible Messaging Experience 

The startup company will use the raised business funding to continue the development of the platform and expand its messaging application programming interfaces (APIs). 

The platform is used by software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers to bring text messaging services to their own platforms. The platform uses an Application to Person (A2P) approach, which is designed on a 10-digit-long code (10DLC) and freephone numbers. 

Jim Andelman, co-founder and managing director of Bonfire Ventures, said Telgorithm creates opportunities for SaaS providers to offer more value to their customers and improve business performance. 

Andelman believes that investing in Telgorithm represents a huge market opportunity, particularly because the startup company’s founders have vast previous experience in developing similar products and bringing them to market. 

The startup company was founded in May of last year after co-founders Aaron Alter, Mason Zheng, and Yury Semerikov identified a significant gap in the market and the need for a robust business telecom and messaging platform. Together, Alter and Zheng have more than 18 years of experience in the telecom industry with a focus on wireless, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and SaaS sectors.

The Telgorithm platform was developed to allow SaaS vendors to easily validate, build, deploy, and scale communications, noted Altor, who is also the CEO of the company. The platform empowers product managers in small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and enterprises to launch reliable and effective messaging features. 

Alter previously led the telecommunications division at ServiceTitan and served as a director of telecommunications at SignalWire. In May 2021, he and Zheng co-founded Telgorithm in a bid to revolutionize cloud communications technology and help SaaS vendors make the transition from Person-to-Person (P2P) SMS to A2P messaging, while complying with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations. 

"Tackling compliance-based messaging was just the beginning for Telgorithm. By offering high throughput 10DLC and guaranteed message deliverability, we are setting a higher bar for messaging services. Separately, we're very passionate about voice products that enable end-customers of SaaS providers to generate more revenue and find new ways to improve call efficiency. That is why we're tackling voice next,” Alter said.

Mobile operators have been pushing to move commercial messaging from P2P to A2P in recent years as it would provide better protection to end-users from receiving unwanted text messages. 

The focus is on facilitating the go-to-market journey for SMBs and enterprises by providing them with easy-to-use and integrable telecommunication features that will work seamlessly with their own core applications, according to Zheng.

Telgorithm founders could not “find any providers that offered functionalities like building messaging queues to adding additional redundancies,” added Semerikov. Hence, the new funding is raised to build a platform that will provide the best-possible telecom experience for customers who collaborate with businesses from different industries and sectors.

Summary

Cloud communications startup Telgorithm announced it has raised $3.8 million in a seed funding round led by Bonfire Ventures.

About the Author

Adriaan Brits

As an analyst of global affairs, Adriaan has an MSC from Oxford, with diverse interests in the digital economy, entertainment, and business. He is a specialist trainer in Advanced Analytics & Media.