LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Community, the SMS engagement platform that connects businesses, brands, political & public figures, celebrities, musicians, and creators to their audiences at scale, today announced $25 million in funding. This round includes return investors Salesforce Ventures, and new investors Morgan Stanley Next Level Fund, HubSpot, Pier 70 Ventures, Verizon Ventures, GSW Ventures, Backstage Capital, Wocstar Fund, and others.
Since 2019, Community, the award-winning company, currently co-founded by Guy Oseary, Ashton Kutcher and Josh Rosenheck, has helped to redefine how celebrities, musicians, and cultural pioneers interact with their audiences over text. By offering a personalized 10-digit number, the company was among the first to create a hyper-personalized conversational SMS experience for its customers- free of social algorithm interference, spam, and ads.
In late-2021, the company began making its move upmarket by rapidly growing its customer base after success with celebrities like Kerry Washington, musicians like JLo, and small businesses like Kids of Immigrants, Rizos Curls, and more. This momentum led to an expansion to enterprise and Fortune 500 companies like McDonalds. Today the company has expanded to sports teams and leagues such as New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Penguins, Minnesota Timberwolves, Utah Jazz, and more; entertainment companies including Lionsgate, Showtime, and more; and music labels and artists from Warner Music Group, and more.
Guillaume Huin, Social Media Director at McDonald’s said, “Community is the next level of trust, connection and fun for our customers –It’s the friend to friend text that makes you feel like you are building an authentic and unique relationship with someone, or in this case, with your favorite brand. Community empowers our brand to be the friend that we want to be with our fans, taking social media engagement one step further.”
In alignment with its recent expansion in enterprise, Community announced Diankha Linear as President and CEO. Diankha joined the Community team in 2021 as its Chief Operating Officer, and has already made an indelible mark on the company. She has led the company’s key focus and strategy around several verticals, like the public sector, and supported the team in welcoming key Members on the platform, such as The White House, Michelle Obama and more. Additionally, Diankha helped to create and launch Community Cares, an initiative that allows equitable access to the platform.
“The impact that Community's platform can have on the way brands, businesses, and public figures engage with their audience - is next level," said Diankha Linear, CEO and President of Community. “Our customers have the ability to hyper personalize conversations with their audiences in a way that is authentic and efficient. Audiences feel like they are being listened to for the first time – and that’s because they are. This is the value we add to the engagement landscape. This is the power of Community."
In mid 2022, Robert Wolf, CEO of 32 Advisors and former UBS Americas CEO & Chairman, became Executive Chairman of Community.
“As Community’s first Chairman of the Board, I am honored to take on this role at such a pivotal moment of growth for the company,” said Robert Wolf. “Community is making its mark on the most notable spaces in entertainment, sports, politics, and music. I am lucky to have such great partners in Diankha, Guy, Ashton and a team of true professionals.”
Community’s human-assisted AI technology and easy-to-use product has unmatched performance with 98% open rates within the first 5 minutes, 45% average click through rates, and 30% average response rates. Community offers key product integrations with Salesforce, Shopify, Zapier, ActBlue, and many more. The company is excited to announce it has plans to leverage the recent innovation made possible by Generative AI in several enhancements anticipated to release later this year.
For more information on Community’s Leaders, product offerings and more, please visit: Community.com.
About Us
Community is the SMS marketing platform that connects businesses, brands, political & public figures, creators, musicians, celebrities, and more, to their audiences at scale through a unique 10-digit phone number.
