Led by investors including the Reno Seed Fund and AZ-VC, former PayPal executive Jack Selby’s venture firm, this seed round fuels MessageDesk’s growth and market expansion

MessageDesk, a text messaging software for small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), announced its successful $1.6M million Seed investment. Led by the Reno Seed Fund and with new investments from AZ-VC, Acadian Capital Ventures, Arizona Tech Investors, and Desert Angels; along with support from the Sierra Innovations Entrepreneur Fund of the Sierra Angels.

This new capital furthers MessageDesk’s mission of routing business communications to the right people and places at the right time. The company aims to hit $1M+ in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in 2023 and anticipates reaching 1000 SMB customers by the end of Q1 2024 while also expanding its mid-market customer base.

“Savvy investors are increasing their investments in companies like MessageDesk because they deliver on strong use cases and they have shown very early on that they are able to generate sustainable, recurring revenue,” explained Gene Wong, Managing Partner of The Reno Seed Fund. “Proven and successful SaaS startups like MessageDesk are hard to find.”

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“Healthcare staffing agencies, logistics providers, school administrators, and many other professionals already use MessageDesk’s inbox and broadcast features to route their text conversations and reach everyone on their contact lists,” said Clint Vernon, Co-Founder and CEO of MessageDesk. “We’ve established product-market fit with over 600 SMB and mid-market customers. These new funds will enable us to scale our marketing, sales, and customer success operations while continuing to evolve our platform and expand it to include features like AI-driven sentiment analysis, team chatbots, and voice-to-text.”

“Our investment in MessageDesk is a testament to the potential we see in their innovative solution and business model, especially considering the fluctuating economic conditions and shift to not only more mobile work but mobile work that demands greater efficiency and coordination to deliver services when and where they are most needed,” said Ben Brockwell, Partner at AZ-VC. “MessageDesk’s focus on streamlining the user experience and its strategic growth plans align well with our investment philosophy.”

MessageDesk is a tech company solving real-world problems. It is a great example of the emerging startup ecosystem in Reno, Nevada. MessageDesk’s initial local and regional angel investment and new out-of-state venture funding, reiterate its commitment to serving small and medium-sized businesses and aligns well with the investment theses of the contributing funds.

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