Announcing our $35 Million Series B Funding
News

Alex Beller

March 2, 2021

Reading Time: 3 minutes

We went full time on Postscript in January 2019, right as we were starting YCombinator. Those were different days. We were hustling, growing each month but unsure if we truly had product-market fit. Adam (my cofounder, and our CEO), rigged Twilio to dial our cell phones whenever someone chatted in to the Drift widget on our site. We were (and I believe, remain) customer obsessed - we’d take turns waking up in the middle of the night to answer those chats, much to the chagrin of our families.

In the two years since then, a lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same. The Postscript team is now 60 (and growing fast, with over 25 open roles), we’ve gone from dozens of paying customers to >3,500, and now send hundreds of millions of texts per year. However, in all that change, I’m extremely proud of the team that's assembled and how everyone has hung on to Postscript's customer-first roots. The entire Postscript team has embraced and embodies our core values (FEACH - more here), and the results speak for themselves. Our team regularly gets organic shoutouts on social media for the quality of the support and counsel we provide our customers. And in a space with so much noise and misleading information + sales tactics, we’ve built a reputation as the honest broker. Nothing better.

At this point, I think it’s fair to say I’ve buried the lede — today we have some news to share. Postscript has raised a $35M Series B led by Greylock, with support from our existing investors as well. Mike Duboe reached out to me cold ahead of YC’s demo day back in 2019, we’ve stayed in touch since, and have built a great relationship (hey! cold emails do work!). Adam, Colin, and I are all excited to have both Mike Duboe and Sarah Guo joining our board.

So - why are we raising and what will we do with the money? Up to this point, Postscript has been extremely capital efficient. I’ve received a few questions with this announcement - “what happened to your Series A???”. Well, we skipped it. We’ve been lucky to build Postscript sustainably, and will continue to do so.

So, this fundraise isn’t about stocking our coffers with money to survive. Rather, it’s because our ambition has grown dramatically. And the opportunity to partner with the folks at Greylock, while adding to our capacity to think big and move fast, was simply too good to pass up. The money will go towards rapidly scaling our team so we can fully attack the opportunity in front of us.

So - what is that opportunity? In short, we believe that it’s still day 1 for SMS and messaging within ecommerce. We believe if brands are going to use SMS, it needs to be targeted, two-way, and have diverse ecommerce use cases… not the spammy, 1:many marketing we see dominate the channel today.

“We are building a product that is at the intersection of two big trends — messaging and digital commerce,” said Colin Turner, COO at Postscript. “This funding will help us continue on our mission to build the world’s greatest remote organization and accelerate our product roadmap to modernize interactions between brands and consumers.”

- Colin Turner, Co-Founder & COO

We have big plans for 2021 as we build *the* Conversational Commerce platform for brands on Shopify. If you want the early look at what I’m talking about - sign up for The Drop Line. Big things coming later this year!

So - Are we still focused on the Shopify ecosystem? Yes. Exclusively so. We believe that by focusing on Shopify, we will build a substantially better product - one focused on serving the needs of independent merchants, vs spreading ourselves thin catering to many different platforms and communities. It’s been a pleasure working with the Shopify team, and we look forward to continuing to help arm the rebels (with SMS superpowers 😁)

"The intense community love we've observed toward Postscript over the years is incredibly rare to see. Across merchants, integration partners, agencies, and key players in the commerce ecosystem — Postscript has quickly become a household name. This community fervor is a testament to Postscript's unparalleled ROI, deep empathy for merchants, and most importantly, strong foundation to solidify SMS as the most valuable channel in commerce. This team is beloved and for good reason — they're great humans with a big vision, strong product intuition, and unwavering customer obsession."

- Mike Duboe, General Partner at Greylock

We view this funding as a pitstop, not the destination. We’re committed to building Postscript into a large, sustainable business that creates positive impact for all our stakeholders, and does it without ruining texting for the world. We’re going to remain values-first and customer-obsessed as we scale. And if you’re interested in helping define a new category with an A+ team, we’re hiring broadly. We've been a fully-remote org for years... since pre-pandemic days, and our whole team is focused on being great at this new paradigm. Adam, Colin, and I endeavor to empower folks to do some of the best work of their careers at Postscript… before they go on to start their own companies.

Last, I want to end with a huge, heartfelt thank you to all who’ve supported us and Postscript thus far. The entire Postscript team, our friends + families, our partners (from Shopify, to all the agencies and technologies we’re proud to partner with) - thank you. In addition, a sincere thanks to our investors up to this point - YC, TJ Mahony, Blake Bartlett + Team OV, Moiz Ali, Ramy Adeeb, Drew Leahy, Mathilde Collin - and many more of the outstanding angels who’ve supported us. Also, a special welcome to Larry Fitzgerald who’s joining team PS as a Series B investor. For 3 guys from Arizona, it’s special to have a local legend and all around good person join us. I mean… the man has never dropped a pass!!! C’mon!!!

However, all of the above come second to our customers. A sincere thanks for your support, evangelism, patience, and feedback. We will continue to put your interests first, deal honestly, and build great products to help you grow.

For more, check out the article in TechCrunch, Mike Duboe’s announcement on the Greylock Blog, or our Press Release here.

To stay on top of more Postscript news, including exciting new upcoming product announcements, join our Drop Line (plus — you'll get a good preview of SMS in action.)

-Alex Beller, President

Alex Beller

Alex Beller

Co-founder and President

Alex Beller is the Co-founder and President of Postscript.