Send Word Now raises $8.5m Brief
By SSN Staff
Updated Sat December 1, 2007
NEW YORK--Send Word Now, an on-demand alerting and response services company, in October announced it raised $8.5 million in series C funding. The money will be used to expand its services platform, and increase its sales and marketing team, said Tom Shoemaker, the company's president and CEO.
Specifically, Shoemaker said, Send Word Now will bulk up its instant messaging and text messaging packages. The Virginia Tech shooting in April has led to a rise in colleges and universities using alert messaging systems, he said, with text messaging as the most common modality.
"My generation uses e-mail and voice to communicate," he said, "but my children's generation and much of Europe are using text messaging as the main mode for communications."
The company will also expand into vertical markets where alerts and responses are integrated into everyday business processes, he said, and will add more vendors and carriers of its products.
Many of Send Word Now's existing investors, including Ascend Venture Group and Southpaw Asset Management, invested in this round. That shows investor confidence is strong, Shoemaker said.
"We're happy because we've been able to keep our investors happy," he said. "We've been able to keep them participating, which means we can continue to watch the firm grow."
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