TULSA, Okla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Volt, the leading Messaging Operations (Ops) infrastructure platform that enables software companies to integrate with multiple SMS providers and streamline number registration compliance and delivery reporting, today announced the closing of its $3 million seed round. The round was led by Mercury, with participation from Atento Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures, Stout Street Capital, and Yellow Rocks. The new funding will enable Volt to further enhance and accelerate its product development and strategically expand its team.
The SMS marketplace has grown significantly in recent years as a result of increased marketing and customer support efforts, evidenced by a 20.3% compound annual growth rate from 2019 to 2025. SMS is becoming the predominant method of communication among U.S. consumers, with average open rates around 98%. The rapid growth of the SMS market has coincided with recent regulatory shifts across U.S. phone carriers aimed at decreasing the level of spam messages but has made it nearly impossible for SMS providers and everyday brands to keep up.
Volt, launched in the middle of 2022, was founded by Martin Langelo Lien and Matt Morfopoulos. The idea for the business was born out of the founders’ experience with the inefficiencies of compliance for SMS operations firsthand while running a text marketing company for three and a half years, during which they recognized the fundamental need for infrastructure to ensure compliance was maintained across carriers. Volt was built to help companies manage the complexities of large-scale text messaging and significantly reduce the engineering hours spent on the upkeep of internal infrastructure. Through Volt’s centralized API, companies can effectively manage all of their SMS providers in one place, guide brands through the hurdles of registering phone numbers, and provide real-time SMS deliverability insights to ensure issues are resolved efficiently across providers. Volt is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"Companies have been struggling with SMS even before phone carriers implemented the 10 Digit Long Code regulation in the spring of 2021. Now with increased complexities around regulations, it is more necessary than ever to safeguard companies from thousands of dollars in fines and fees for not abiding by rapidly-evolving rules and protocols,” said Martin Langelo Lien, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Volt. "We started Volt to address these problems, starting with the most pressing issue: getting a phone number registered with the carriers in the first place. With no support from phone carriers or traditional SMS providers, software companies are forced to waste millions of dollars on critical but repeatable work. We are grateful for the support of our dedicated investors to tackle this problem head-on and look forward to continuing to build and advance our product suite.”
Notably, Volt has achieved operational profitability and has exceptional revenue growth, increasing over 100% in the first quarter of 2024 alone. Volt has partnered with some of the largest programmable communications technology companies in the market, including Twilio, Vonage, Telnyx, and Bandwidth, in addition to a wide range of media, technology, and two-factor authentication platforms. Volt works with a growing number of software vendors to help their customers stay compliant with carrier standards while delivering positive and authentic experiences within their SMS operations. Nearly half a billion messages have been processed on Volt’s platform thus far.
“As we scale our team and capabilities, there are a ton of exciting opportunities we can tackle within the Messaging Ops space. With this latest round of funding we will continue to drive awareness around messaging ops, and stay focused on solving our partner's biggest issues today, while supporting phone carriers' goals of a spam-free SMS channel” said Matt Morfopoulos, Co-Founder and Head of Growth at Volt.
“Volt is defining a needed category within SMS Messaging Operations and we have been impressed with their rapid success and disciplined approach to growth,” said Heath Butler, Venture Partner at Mercury Fund. “Developer time is often wasted on building and maintaining SMS deliverability and compliance adherence, and we are confident that Volt will continue to serve as a trusted provider, improving infrastructure for SMS solutions for years to come.”
“Businesses not only continue to face challenges in managing their SMS operations but are also up against a looming regulatory deadline to ensure that carrier compliance standards are met, exacerbating a critical infrastructure gap that has existed for some time in the SMS industry,” said Salil Deshpande, General Partner at Uncorrelated Ventures. “Volt, founded by a highly technical team, delivers efficiency, automation, and cost-savings to ease this burden for software companies. I’m excited to be supporting Volt at this critical juncture and am looking forward to supporting their growth.”
About Volt
Volt is the leading Messaging Operations (Ops) infrastructure platform that enables software companies to integrate with multiple SMS providers and streamline number registration compliance and delivery reporting. Volt’s suite of solutions saves companies thousands of wasted engineering hours on building and maintaining their SMS compliance. To learn more about Volt, visit https://www.textvolt.com/.
