By Péralte C. Paul
Voxa, an ATDC Select Company, announced it raised $2.5 million in a round of funding.
Ethos Capital Partners and Premier Global Services Inc. invested in the company, whose cloud-based software measures, mines and monitors email activity. With that data, Voxa clients can see how to maximize sales potential and better manage customer issues and problems.
“We are onto a big idea. We want to do it right and we want to go big,” said Voxa co-founder and CEO Johnson Cook. “If we don’t, someone will beat us to it.”
The funds from this seed round will be used to broaden engineering, add to the core product capabilities and to beef up the sales team in six months, Cook said.
The investment, he said, is validation of a market need for companies to measure emails and understand how they could affect sales.
“Email today is the equivalent of telephones before there were phone systems and PBXs,” Cook said. “There is no tracking of ‘hold time’ when customers email employees.
“With Voxa, companies can not only track policies around email and responsiveness but can now enforce those policies effectively.”
As an ATDC Select Company, Voxa can tap into specialized coaching, training and business development strategies aimed at boosting tech startups’ success.
For example, Voxa has a dedicated Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR) — someone who successfully launched his or her own startup — to guide its growth and development.
Voxa’s EIR, Tim Sheehan, a tech entrepreneur with two decades of successful startups and exits, has been invaluable, Cook said.
“Tim Sheehan has been amazing,” Cook said. “H constantly adds great value, big ideas, and powerful connections/introductions for us.”
ATDC — Advanced Technology Development Center — is a unit of the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) at Georgia Tech.
EI2 is tasked with strengthening economic and business development statewide. It does that through several programs that:
- Leverage Georgia Tech’s research capabilities,
- Help entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies, and
- Advise existing business on how to improve competitiveness.