$600k Seed Round For Christchurch Voicemail Startup

A Christchurch startup tackling the pet hate of many — having to check voicemail messages — has just received $600,000 to help it on its mission.

Vxt is a smart voicemail app that converts voicemails to text for users to read in the Vxt app, or via an email.

It can save business owners hundreds of hours a year in time spent checking voicemail messages, and is particularly useful for tradespeople and those hard of hearing.

Since launching late last year, Vxt has converted more than 200,000 voicemail messages from audio messages to text for thousands of Kiwis and has launched in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.

The app has been downloaded more than 18,000 times and the team has expanded from five to 13 people.

Today, it’s announcing the closure of its first-ever capital raise, with $600,000 raised.

Investors in this round of funding include experienced entrepreneurs, as well as respected executives from a range of businesses like Adrian Pike (Founder of Rafferty’s Garden which was acquired for ~$70M), Robert Rolls (CFO of Umbrellar Group), & James Powell (Co-Founder of Dawn Aerospace).

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“With this capital raise, we not only get a significant cash injection to help us scale faster, we also get a wealth of business experience to draw from,” 23-year-old Vxt co-founder Luke Campbell says.

“The investment is a real show of faith in what we’re doing at Vxt, and we’re excited to take on both the investment and experience to scale up our expansion.”

Vxt will use the investment money to accelerate its international roll out, and broaden its product to include business phone systems for small business owners.

The business has received financial and tech support from Google, and was one of five companies earlier this year to take part in the Vodafone xone startup accelerator.

Campbell says the Vxt team is investing heavily in its technology, including a conversational AI assistant able to answer phone calls, and smart phone systems so they can provide their customers with full telecommunications services via their platform.

The business is also using machine learning to develop more accurate transcriptions on phone call audio.

These developments come off the back of significant recent innovations for Vxt, including: the ability for users to record unique voicemail greetings for specific contacts, the ability for them to use Vxt on their desktop as well as on their mobile phone, and the ability for them to link the software to other automations through their integrations marketplace.

“Two million voicemail messages are recorded every single day in New Zealand alone, and it would take almost a whole year to listen to them all back-to-back,” Campbell says.

“We’re on a mission to give people back their time so they can spend it on things that matter, such as growing their businesses. Thanks to this investment round, we’re going to be able to accomplish our mission much faster.”

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