SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwired - Feb 13, 2014) - Front Desk, a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup delivering integrated business management and payment processing for personal services businesses and franchises, today announced it has secured $4 million in Series A financing. The round was led by FLOODGATE with participation from existing investors, including Second Avenue Partners; Version One Ventures; Rich Barton, founder of Expedia and co-founder of Zillow; and others. This brings the total capital raised to date to $7.2 million. Mike Maples, Jr. of FLOODGATE and Boris Wertz of Version One Ventures have joined the Front Desk Board of Directors.
Front Desk delivers a complete mobile-first business management platform for small- to mid-sized businesses and franchises in the personal services arena, such as yoga studios, CrossFit gyms, tour operators, music schools, tutoring centers, and more. The company estimates these types of businesses account for more than $350 billion in personal services each year in the United States alone.
Operating less than one year, Front Desk already has roughly 1,000 businesses in more than 20 countries, including more than 150 Fit4Mom franchisees, utilizing its mobile SaaS platform. More than 60 percent of Front Desk usage is mobile, and the company is on track to process more than $100 million in payments this year. This latest financing will allow the company to accelerate its product development and international rollout, and invest in marketing and building its team.
"This has been an incredible first year for Front Desk and we're delighted to secure this financing from such a well-respected group of investors and entrepreneurs. The funding will help us step on the gas to meet our growing demand," said Jon Zimmerman, Front Desk co-founder and CEO, who is also a partner in a CrossFit gym. "Personal services businesses are not strictly transactional; these types of businesses build long-term, personal relationships with their customers. We built Front Desk to integrate all the mobile tools and services these businesses need to better serve their customers, become more efficient and increase profitability."
Front Desk provides a wide range of services through an easily branded interface including client management, scheduling, recurring billing, email marketing, digital documents, and secure payment processing.
"Front Desk has integrated the critical elements of business management and payment processing into a simple, intuitive mobile interface that's helping businesses grow," said FLOODGATE's Maples. "We see a lot of SaaS applications, but rarely do we see this level of innovation in a simple mobile product enjoying such hyper growth in less than a year in operation."
Front Desk offers tiered pricing for businesses, based on the company's size and transaction volume, that starts at just $45 per month and scales as businesses do.
Based in Seattle's Capitol Hill, Front Desk is hiring, and expects to more than double its team this year to approximately 40 people.
ABOUT FRONT DESK
Front Desk™ is a rapidly growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that provides cloud-based business management tools to the personal services economy. The technology is optimized to work on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers to enable personal service businesses, which are inherently mobile, the ability to run their businesses from anywhere, at any time. This includes fitness and yoga studios, dance and music schools, physical therapists, acupuncturists, adventure guides, tutors, teachers, and other businesses and franchises. Using Front Desk, business owners can easily manage client relationships, automate billing, securely process credit cards, schedule classes and appointments, track attendance, automate email marketing, and create a customized and branded client-facing experience. The company debuted in spring 2013 and has already improved the efficiency and profitability of nearly 1,000 personal services businesses globally. Front Desk is headquartered in Seattle. For more information, visit: http://www.frontdeskhq.com.