Text Messaging Featured Article

The creator of social messaging app textPlus, GOGII, Inc. recently announced that it has raised an additional $15 million in a round of financing led by GRP Partners. GRP will now join existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Matrix Partners. Both of the existing partners also invested in this round making it GOGII’s third round of successful financing.

GOGII has demonstrated tremendous traction with consumers. Launched in 2009, its textPlus app has brought through over 7 billion messages, which works out to more than 30 million per day. The app has some phenomenal stats, such as being downloaded over 14 million times, boasts 7.7 million monthly active users and also adds more than 100,000 new users every single day. The textPlus app has almost tripled its user base since December 2009 and recently took over the #36 spot on Apple’s (News - Alert) list of the all-time most popular free iTunes apps.

In a release, GRP partner Mark Suster said that, “We invested in GOGII’s massive scale and its seasoned team. This isn’t a couple of rookies with a one-trick-pony app. This is a former senior team from Activision (News - Alert), the same guys who also created JAMDAT and sold it to EA, quietly building one of the most popular mobile social platforms we’ve ever seen. When it comes to capturing users, these guys are knocking the cover off the ball. Combine their leadership with that scale -- and you’re going to see a lot of exciting news from this company very soon.”

textPlus is currently the only app that allows people to text in topic-driven community chat groups, as well as in one-to-one and group conversations. Combined with its photo-sharing, people search and personalization features, textPlus has successfully layered in social elements to traditional texting to remarkable public response. The app is currently available for download on the iPhone (News - Alert), iPod touch, iPad and Android, and is designed to work across all carriers on any mobile device that sends and receives SMS messages.