Zenzap, a workplace messaging app with built-in AI, has raised $44 million in funding. The company says it wants to give businesses an alternative to consumer chat apps like WhatsApp for talking with staff.
Investors in the round include Bessemer, Lightspeed, and The Garage. Individual backers include Wix president Nir Zohar and Yoram Tietz, a former general manager at EY.
A First-Time Fundraise for a Seasoned Founder
The funding marks the first time co-founder Guy Weiss has raised outside money. In 2012, he bootstrapped StuccoMedia, an e-commerce marketing platform, and sold it to Market Group in 2015.
Weiss then spent several years as an investor. In 2022, he founded Zenzap with co-founders Noam Neumann and Jonatan Bien after meeting Bessemer partner Adam Fisher.
Weiss said he first funded the app himself and worked out of Bessemer’s office. He told TechCrunch he did not want to raise capital because he feared a second venture could fail after his first success.
Fisher convinced him that Zenzap should be venture-backed. According to Weiss, the company would need outside capital to grow.
How Zenzap Works
Zenzap is built for a wide range of industries, including hospitality, construction, healthcare, and fast food. Weiss said many of these workers rely on personal apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, or iMessage.
He said those apps cannot be used with AI agents at work because they do not meet IT rules. He added that Slack and Microsoft Teams were not designed for mobile-first use by average workers.
The free version of Zenzap includes group chats, direct messages, task management, and calendar tools. It also offers AI-powered voice chat and search.
Paid plans start at $51 per month for up to 20 users. These plans add voice and video calls, smart task sorting, task templates, more file storage, workspace-wide AI search, and the ability to turn messages into tasks.
The company also sells AI agents for workflow automation, plus AI transcription of voice notes and calls. These features use a credit-based pricing system.
Zenzap lists FedEx, Dollar General, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Casey’s, and Regal as clients. Weiss said branches of IHOP and McDonald’s often use the platform to coordinate shifts and discuss supplies.
“Each vertical has its own use case and workflows, which they self-serve with AI, but they all share something in common,” Weiss said.
Fisher said Bessemer’s own investment team uses Zenzap to discuss and manage deals. He said the app is aimed at the large share of employees outside the developer community who use personal messaging apps for work.
“People desperately want a clear separation of work from their personal lives,” Fisher told TechCrunch in a statement.
Zenzap currently has 50 employees across the U.S., Tel Aviv, and Europe. The company plans to hire for its product and research and development teams in the near future.
