OneText Raises $4.5M

The typical online checkout experience has become bloated with friction. And while more companies are building solutions around online checkout, few are rethinking it from scratch. One such company is OneText, which is building what it calls a “text-to-buy network” that lets shoppers complete purchases via text message. The company, founded by former PayPal employees, just closed a $4.5 million seed round backed by Khosla Ventures, Coatue, Citi Ventures, Y Combinator, Good Friends (the fund created by the founders of Warby Parker, Allbirds, and Harry’s), and Matt Bellamy, the frontman of Muse. Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Fudem came up with the idea while working on the checkout team at PayPal. There, he saw many upstarts with slick UX stumble over the same go-to-market hurdle: convincing merchants to swap out their existing payment flows.  By using SMS, OneText doesn’t require a merchant to replace their website’s existing checkout. While large platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp also have e-commerce features, Fudem believes brands still need direct, ownable relationships with their customers. OneText views itself as a competitor to the SMS marketing companies known for mass, impersonal messaging and spammy links.