At Shasta Ventures we are incredibly bullish about mobile technologies for the enterprise. Shasta’s very first investment was in Zenprise, a leading mobile device management company ultimately acquired by Citrix. Since then, we’ve continue to put substantial dollars behind this trend with companies like Mocana (mobile enterprise security), SpiderCloud Wireless (enhanced mobile connectivity), WatchDox (secure mobile file sync), Crittercism (mobile app performance management) and StrongLoop (Node.js mobile app platform). And today we are announcing our latest investment into TigerText, the leader in secure messaging for the enterprise.

Between SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, and a handful of other similar services, consumers have an insatiable appetite for mobile messaging. Compared to email, phone and voicemail, it is simpler and lighter-weight. It saves time, enables multi-tasking and makes rapid back-and-forth communication more efficient. And as a real-time communication channel for priority messages, it is the best way to get a quick response for any time-sensitive matter. Given all of the benefits to mobile messaging, it is no surprise to see employees bring this technology into the enterprise at an astounding rate.

This is fantastic for the individual employee, but it creates some significant challenges for the enterprise, particularly in industries like health care, financial services and the legal industry. Privacy and data security are critically important in these sectors, and often there is even regulation that mandates increased levels of data security. However, in spite of that regulation you can walk into a hospital today and you are likely to see doctors and nurses using their smartphones to message with each other. Legacy pagers are clunky and difficult to use, cell phones typically result in a frustrating game of voicemail tag, and neither supports image sharing. Sometimes these messaging conversations are innocuous, but in many cases they are for clinical purposes and include private patient information, a big no-no for HIPAA compliance. A couple of years back these compliance infractions were rare enough to overlook, but today it has become much too common for hospitals to ignore.

Three years ago Brad Brooks founded TigerText and set out to solve this problem. He and his team built a best-in-breed secure messaging product that brings all of the simplicity of SMS, but without the data security concerns. Features like self-deleting messages and message recall put the hospital compliance officer at ease and ensure that patients’ private data remains private. He built an experienced sales team with intimate knowledge of mobility solutions and the health care ecosystem that has quickly become a well-oiled machine. And he built an organization universally committed to customer success which leads to happy customers and strong retention. Three years later the foundation they built is translating into great business success. They have deployed across more than 3,000 healthcare facilities and have generated three consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth, including 4x revenue growth over the last year alone. As venture capitalists we often ask the question “why now?”, and it is clear from speaking with potential customers that the timing could not be better for the company to capitalize against this massive opportunity.

We could not be more excited about partnering with Brad and the TigerText team. They have come a long way in three years and we look forward to supporting them in the future.