OneText just launched into the e-commerce world – and already it’s rocking the circuit! They’ve closed $4.5 million of seed funding already and building a revolutionary “text-to-buy network,” so shoppers can make purchases just by sending a text. So brothers and company founders Jonathan Fudem and Daniel Brain decided to reinvent what the process looks like. They use innovation to make transactions easier and more intuitive for consumers.
CONA’s recent funding round closed successfully with a total of $11.5 million. It garnered backers from the likes of Khosla Ventures, Coatue, Citi Ventures, Y Combinator, Good Friends and musician Matt Bellamy. A portrait from one of OneText’s successful 2023 Y Combinator cohorts. Since then, the team has been stealthily building its post-Demo Day platform.
OneText enables consumers to securely store their payment info after their first purchase, making future transactions even easier. The platform uses a unique combination of artificial intelligence to create fluid, two-way dialogues. People power boosts accountability, responsiveness, and public return on investment. Together this has been a winning combination, increasing clients’ conversion rates by 20–30%.
Fudem, the company’s CEO, laid out the difficulty of designing a consumer-oriented wallet that lived up to the lofty expectations.
“Building a consumer-facing wallet that’s 10x better is really hard,” – Jonathan Fudem
Under Fudem’s leadership, OneText has proven to be a beautiful story of growth, scaling three times year over year and earning millions in revenue. The platform primarily serves mid-sized e-commerce brands with annual revenues between $10 million and $100 million but caters to smaller startups and larger enterprises.
Although the idea for OneText came later, Fudem’s inspiration stemmed from his time working on the checkout team at PayPal. Understanding the challenges and lack of efficiency in e-commerce shopping, he wanted to build an easier option for shoppers. Collaborating closely with Brain, the Chief Technology Officer, they created a product that makes shopping as efficient as possible. Beyond being an innovative solution, it can significantly increase customer retention by allowing for personalized interactions.
With the success of their pilot, OneText is expanding quickly. Overall, it hopes to both deepen its penetration in e-commerce and online transaction sectors and establish itself as a major innovator in transaction technology. The additional funding will be critical as it looks to continue to build on development efforts and further expand its operations.