oneTXT Enters Social Media Payments Market with $2 MM Series A
Calling itself "a social media payment platform", http://www.oneTXT.com has announced that it has closed $2 million in Series A financing. "Metamorphic Ventures, New York City, led the round, joined by KPG Ventures of San Francisco, and New York Angels Fund. Individual angel investors also participated, including David Hirsch, formerly at Google; Geoffrey Judge, co-founder of 24/7 Real Media (now part of WPP); Roger Ehrenberg, former president and CEO of DB Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bank AG; and Mark Michel, formerly Group Head at TD Capital, TD Bank's private equity fund focused on the media and communications sectors."
Based in Manhattan’s advertising district, with offices in downtown San Francisco, oneTXT provides a payments processing alternative for social networks, online games, participation TV shows, and other social media. oneTXT enables social media and entertainment companies to accept payments, create loyalty programs, and send marketing messages without a third party owning the information or the relationship.
“oneTXT has built an integrated solution that has the potential to transform the way social media thinks of transactions solutions,” said Roger Wood, Chairman and CEO of oneTXT. “Online transactions solutions like iTunes and Amazon’s 1-Click are optimized for e-commerce. oneTXT approaches the marketplace with a belief that transactions between audience members and the social media brand itself are the true business model for all social media. Our hypothesis is that the payments world of tomorrow will look very different from the one which made PayPal a juggernaut with eBay’s momentum.”
The company also announced that Lucy Hood has joined as independent board director. A pioneer in the participation TV segment of social media, Hood was recently named the Executive Director of the USC Marshall Business School Institute for Communication Technology Management (CTM). Previously, she served as CEO of Jamba and was a key architect of News Corporation’s mobile strategy. Under Hood’s leadership, Jamba’s reach extended to one billion people in 25 languages, offering the content from Universal Music, Warner Music, MTV, Sony/BMG, Electronic Arts and Disney. Hood was a key executive in launching numerous technology businesses at Fox and News Corp, including Fox Pay Television, Fox.com, FX Cable and the News Corp Content Group. Hood and her team created many industry firsts and led the groundbreaking “American Idol” mobile efforts, which introduced text messaging to mass media.
"We are very pleased to have Lucy join our board. Given Lucy’s successful track record of introducing interactive innovations, we believe she will add significant value to help us grow our business," said Lewis Gersh, founder of Metamorphic Ventures.
“KPG Ventures quickly recognized the promise of transactions within apps on social media sites. Lucy adds a critical customer acquisition perspective that complements the experience that KPG Ventures and Metamorphic already have in transaction processing,” said Dave Hills, General Partner of KPG Ventures.
In a related announcement today, oneTXT has appointed former iVillage CTO and SVP Richard Caccappolo as president and chief operating officer.
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