Thena Raises $5 Million in Seed Funding from Lightspeed and First Round Capital to Transform Customer Communications for B2B Organizations Using Slack and Teams
With the latest round of capital, Thena will double down on product innovation and company expansion
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 24, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Thena, the leading customer communications and intelligence platform that helps businesses manage customers on messaging platforms like Slack, today announced it raised $5 million in Seed funding, co-led by Lightspeed and First Round Capital.
Thena's product enables Slack and other messaging platforms to be used at scale for B2B customer communications and solves for their biggest pain points. Specifically, it helps customer-facing teams manage customers in tools like Slack in a way not possible before given the lack of software to detect, track and measure customer requests. It solves for intelligence by providing analytics and insights into how customers are engaging with a company, which was previously a manual process. It also solves for connection via integrations with internal tools like Zendesk, HubSpot, and Salesforce. The result is happier customers, higher retention, increased revenue, and more efficient employees.
Thena was founded in April 2022 by Ankit Saxena, Govind Kavaturi, Mike Molinet, and Unmukt Raizada. Molinet also co-founded Branch in 2014, playing a central role to the brand's growth and operational scale. Seeing the massive market opportunity, Molinet left Branch to join Thena as a co-founder.
"The inevitable shift is here. Business communication is moving from email to messaging platforms, and we're on the front lines helping organizations meet their customers where they already work," said Ankit Saxena, CEO and co-founder of Thena. "But it goes beyond better management of communications and relationships. Our AI models synthesize data across communication channels, equipping companies with their own fine-tuned models that enable them to make customer-centric decisions at scale and improve bottom line."
The use cases for messaging platforms like Slack are rapidly expanding. What started as an internal replacement for email is now becoming the primary channel B2B organizations use to communicate with customers and prospects. Innate features like rapid response times, improved security compared to email, and ease of access drove this shift. But the scale at which organizations now rely on tools like Slack also sparked a new set of challenges, including a lack of organization, analytics, and integration with existing systems. This is where Thena comes in. Thena sits in between B2B organizations and their messaging platforms, converting them from mere messaging tools to a powerful communications system capable of improving performance across sales, marketing, and customer support.
"The market demand is already massive and growing every day. As soon as businesses learn that a service like Thena exists, they sign on," said Mike Molinet, co-founder of Thena. "Thena is different from any startup I've been a part of because there's such a pull from the market that has naturally fallen into using Slack and Teams to engage with customers. We don't need to convince people that the future of B2B communications will occur on real-time messaging channels or of the potential market size. We can immediately spend our time on building the best product and solving our customers' most critical challenges."
With customers including Branch, Embrace, Mixpanel, WorkRamp, and Spotdraft already working with Thena, the seed funding will primarily be invested in continuing to scale its product and recruit top talent capable of driving and supporting rapid company growth.
Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed added, "Thena not only has an inspirational vision and mission, but its core team has previously scaled a $100M ARR business from the ground up, proving their ability to build through market cycles with tenacity, innovation, and speed. Their vision of the future of all customer communication – from static to dynamic; from passive to real time; from manual to AI-first – was extremely compelling and we are excited to get started."
Meka Asonye, Partner at First Round, also commented on the fundraise, "as business communication moves from email to messaging, B2B companies need to be where their customers are. We're thrilled to back Thena and excited to see them turn platforms like Slack and Teams intro true customer communication channels with the analytics and integrations companies need to better serve their customers."
Prior to this round, which brings their total funding to $7.2M, they raised $2.2 million in pre-seed funding from Pear VC and Tenacity Venture Capital.
About Thena
Thena is a customer engagement layer designed to help businesses acquire, service, and grow their B2B customers on messaging platforms like Slack and Teams. Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Pear VC and Tenacity Venture Capital, Thena has raised more than $7 million in funding. Thena enables companies to manage their customer channels at scale by providing them with a platform to keep track of customer issues in messaging platforms, gain visibility into customer interactions, and connect those channels to other systems like Zendesk and Salesforce. Learn more at thena.ai.
About Lightspeed
Lightspeed is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise, Consumer, and Health sectors. Since 2000, Lightspeed has backed entrepreneurs and helped build companies of tomorrow, including Snap, Hasura, OYO, Affirm, AppDynamics, Nutanix, Supabase, Byju's, and Udaan. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage more than $18 Billion across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in India, Silicon Valley, Israel, China, Southeast Asia and Europe. http://www.lsip.com
About First Round Capital
First Round is an early-stage venture capital firm that helps startups like Notion, Roblox, Uber, and Square tackle company building firsts. From tailored programs and a vibrant community, to custom-built software and content that serves up unique company building advice, the firm connects founders who are just getting started with the expertise and resources they need to make their first hires, build their first product and find their first customers. Learn more at https://firstround.com.
Media Contact
Samantha Stone, Kickstand for Thena, 617-365-5829, [email protected]
SOURCE Kickstand for Thena
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