Announcing our open beta and $6m Seed fundraise

We’re very excited to announce our $6m Seed fundraise co-led by Index Ventures and Connect Ventures, alongside the launch of our product into open beta.

In Index and Connect, we're incredibly grateful to have the support of what we believe is one of the most respected, pioneering venture funds in the world, as well as the support of one of the most product-driven, high-integrity funds in the European ecosystem. Having both of these powerhouses behind us will give us both the longevity and support we need to execute our vision.

Our round was supported by a host of incredible angels from across the US, UK and European startup ecosystems. These include; Soleio, who led early design at Facebook, Messenger and Dropbox and advisor to Figma; former Asana, Intercom, Box and Carta leaders Emily Kramer and Kathleen Estreich through their fund MKT1; Raycast Co-Founder & CEO Thomas Paul Mann; former Gainsight COO Allison Pickens; Stedi Founder & CEO Zack Kanter; former Monzo VP of Customer Operations Rona Ruthen; former Deliveroo CPTO and Monzo CPO Mike Hudack; former Algolia CEO Nicolas Dessaigne; Truelayer Co-Founder & CTO Luca Martinetti; former Contentful CMO Chris Schagen, Nested and GoCardless Co-Founder Matt Robinson; and many more. We have been particularly humbled that some of our earliest customers are also angel investing in this round.

We are building the customer support tool for modern toolmakers and their customers. We believe that customer support is one of the biggest, and most exciting software categories in the world today. Every company that has customers, has some form of customer service. In many companies, customer support represents the biggest part of the workforce. Yet, they're almost always the least supported, with the worst tooling, worst equipment, and the least amount of help from the rest of the organisation.

Speak to any customer support leader and anyone dealing with customers, and you'll notice two themes: No-one likes the customer support tool they're using – people perceive them as clunky, bloated, slow and complex. And second, everyone, in every company, suffers from a lack of data and context. Who's this customer? What happened before they got in touch? What did they do in the product right before they contacted us?

Both of these problems are design and engineering problems rooted in the fact that the tools in this space have not kept up with the increasing sophistication and technical complexity of companies - and we are dedicating Plain to solving both of them. First of all, we want Plain to be extremely opinionated and fast. It should feel like it's there to speed you up, rather than slow you down. In addition, Plain should be a single, live view over the data you already have. You should never have to switch tabs, or hit refresh just to look up a customer's latest transaction. And finally, Plain should be a joy to build with. Every company is unique, and so is how it supports its customers. You should be able to use Plain wherever your customers are, and enable them talk to you in whatever way works for you and them.

Over the last year and a half, we've been building just that, and today, we're excited to share it with you. Plain gives you one of the most flexible communications offerings out there, a beautiful, fast app to help your customers, and a powerful, mature API that Plain itself is built on top of. And critically, Plain is priced to be open to everyone in the company: You start with a generous free tier, and only pay based on the number of customers you interact with, rather than the number of seats. Head over to Plain.com to sign up now. We want to build Plain openly with your feedback and guidance, and we can't wait to hear what you think.

We'll be growing our team over the next few months, though staying small and nimble while we are pre-PMF. We're hiring in engineering, product marketing, and business operations. We're very proud of the team we've already assembled, combining experience from some of Europe's category-defining names such as Deliveroo, Lyst, Babylon, Freetrade, Hopin and Songkick. If the idea of working on a small team tackling a big mission interests you, then please head over to our Jobs page.