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.