two-way-messaging
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Apptegy Turned One Missed School Event Into a Communications Business Serving 5,250 Districts
School communication used to mean a website, an alert vendor, a social account and a prayer. Apptegy bundled the mess into one district-branded front door - then learned that software alone cannot make a community listen.
Everyware
Everyware is an Austin, Texas-based payments and customer-engagement company that lets businesses collect money and communicate with customers over text message. Founded in 2015 by Larry "Austin" Talley and Scott Orlinsky, its Pay By Text platform turns a mobile phone number into a payment method - customers receive an invoice by text or email and pay by replying, without downloading an app or logging in. Everyware combines two-way SMS messaging, online and in-person payments, recurring billing, and identity-verification tools for merchants in healthcare, travel, automotive, nonprofit, retail, and utilities.
Vital Interaction
Vital Interaction is an Austin, Texas healthcare technology company that blends patient data, business intelligence, and workflow automation to help medical practices communicate with patients across text, voice, and email. Founded in 2009, its platform automates appointment reminders, recalls, reactivations, referrals, and surveys so practices can cut no-shows, close care gaps, and re-engage patients. The company says it serves more than 13,000 providers and delivers over 40 million personalized messages a year to more than 5 million patients, and in early 2024 it raised a $15 million Series A led by Next Coast Ventures.
Avochato
Avochato is a Mill Valley, California SaaS company that gives sales, support, marketing, and operations teams a shared inbox for two-way business conversations over SMS, MMS, RCS, voice, live chat, and WhatsApp. Built for enterprise security and HIPAA compliance, it plugs into Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Okta, and Zapier, and layers in AI agents (Avo AI) for auto-replies, routing, and sentiment detection. Founded in 2016 and backed by a $5M Series A, Avochato has helped 1,000+ businesses run millions of customer conversations.
TextUs
TextUs is a Denver-based business texting platform that gives revenue and recruiting teams real, two-way SMS conversations at scale. It pairs each team with dedicated business phone numbers, a shared inbox, automated campaigns, keywords, and analytics, and plugs directly into CRMs and applicant tracking systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, Bullhorn, Greenhouse and Workday. The pitch is simple: text messages get read and answered while email and voicemail get ignored, so teams that text close, hire, and retain faster.