Txteagle Lands $8.5M, Led by Spark Capital, for Smarter Mobile Messaging

The mobile hits keep coming—though I guess “mobile” is officially redundant in the tech world now.

Boston- and San Francisco-based Txteagle, which makes a mobile-messaging platform for developing markets, has raised $8.5 million in Series A financing led by Spark Capital in Boston. The company’s other seed investors, Flywheel Ventures, RBC Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, and New York angel investor Esther Dyson, also participated in the round. The news was reported earlier by All Things Digital, the Boston Globe, and Mass High Tech.

Txteagle is led by CEO and co-founder Nathan Eagle, a Stanford and MIT Media Lab alum. The company, which started in 2009 (when Xconomy first wrote about it), focuses on software for mobile marketing and market research via text messages, with a twist. Through partnerships with wireless carriers in dozens of countries from Afghanistan to Kenya to Vietnam, Txteagle helps companies and organizations compensate consumers and workers for their texting airtime, which can be expensive. (Basically it’s a way to reward people for responding to mobile ads, and to do good too.)

For those who complain that Spark Capital doesn’t make enough investments in Boston-area startups, Txteagle is just the latest counterexample. Spark has also invested in peerTransfer, 8D World, and Linkwell Health, to name a few recent deals.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.