Fronto

About Fronto

Front operates as a customer communication hub, positioning itself as a platform for building strong customer relationships. Founded in 2013 by Mathilde Collin and Laurent Perrin, the company originated from their desire to change how people work. Collin, with a business background, met Perrin, a software engineer, just a month before they decided to start the company, introduced by an early angel investor in France. The company participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2014 batch. A significant challenge arose in 2017 when co-founder Perrin was diagnosed with cancer, a difficult period Collin had to navigate while leading the company.

The business provides an AI-powered, all-in-one customer service platform designed for collaboration. It reimagines how teams communicate with customers by centralizing conversations from various channels. This allows businesses in sectors like support, sales, and account management to treat every conversation as an opportunity to build a strong relationship. Front's platform brings email and other communication channels together, allowing for team-based handling of customer interactions. Revenue is generated through a seat-based subscription model. The company has learned to diversify its growth strategies beyond organic seat expansion to be more resilient in different economic environments. More than 9,000 organizations utilize Front to manage customer service at scale.

The product consolidates customer conversations and surrounds them with collaboration features and contextual data from various systems. While it started with email as the core unit of work, the platform was designed to be channel-agnostic, easily integrating other communication methods like chat and text messages. The core idea is to manage the 'front office' interactions seamlessly, where a customer sends a message through any channel and receives a coordinated response. The company has secured $204 million in venture funding from firms including Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Battery Ventures, and reached a valuation of $1.7 billion.