Thomas Golisano’s Grand Oaks Capital has invested in another Rochester company. Heretto recently received $17 million in new funding to expand technology development and support its growing client roster.
A business-to-business SaaS company with a content operations platform, Heretto helps its clients with customer self-service by adopting a new way of authoring, organizing and managing documentation.
CEO and co-founder Patrick Bosek says 2022 was “the most exciting year in Heretto’s history. We can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store for us, especially with this new investment powering our next growth phase. We’re thrilled to have the support of Grand Oaks Capital and are looking forward to the future.”
Originally incorporated as easyDITA, Heretto is located on Winton Road and has an office in Krakow, Poland. The company aims to help people using digital channels to solve problems themselves instead of relying on support.
The shift to a decentralized workforce during COVID-19 highlighted the need for businesses to have one single source of truth and a centralized base for all company knowledge, the company says. Heretto claims to meet both these needs. Its clients include names like Allstate and Motorola.
“We have great faith in the Heretto team and see huge potential in the next wave of digital customer experience technologies. We believe companies that invest in their customers’ self-service experience will gain a competitive advantage, and Heretto is the best choice for many of them,” says David Bovenzi, chief investment officer at Grand Oaks Capital. “Heretto has a great track record of revenue growth and is in a great position to be a leader in this space.”
Heretto offers solutions to build enterprise knowledge, and control and deploy it. Its authoring engine, for example, has an intuitive user interface that also responds to functionality requirements. In the era of omnichannel experiences—email, chat and social media—Heretto enables quick responses through a cloud-native, scalable architecture.
The company has raised $21.7 million in funds so far, including seed funding from Armory Square Ventures. (ASV also has invested in Geneva’s RealEats.) It operates in the customer service software market—which includes helpdesk, live chat, call centers and email—that is predicted to grow globally to $58.1 billion by 2030.
Growth is driven by the increasing demand for efficient and effective customer service, market intelligence firm Acumen Research and Consulting notes. The U.S. has many small and midsize business in the field and represents the largest market in North America.
The customer-service software realm also has its risks like data breaches, improper implementation, lack of technical expertise and limited scalability. Companies like Heretto hope to tap into the need for reliable customer service, the use of smartphones and the use of analytics.
For Grand Oaks, Heretto is yet another investment in Upstate New York. The investment firm, which helps with seed and early-stage funding, has boosted area firms like Greenlight Networks—which got a new owner last year—and Farmington’s DinamicOR. Last year, it injected $13 million to reinvigorate Token, a startup focused on the enterprise security market. Based in Rochester, Token has ties to Rochester Institute of Technology.
Smriti Jacob is Rochester Beacon managing editor. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].