One of Chattanooga’s fastest-growing technology companies is expanding into bill-paying services via text through a new partnership with a leading California-based conversational commerce platform as part of its efforts to double in size this year.
Text Request, the Chattanooga-based text messaging software business started in 2014, announced Tuesday a partnership with Authvia to provide text-to-pay services through the Text Request platform. The new offering, called Payments, enables organizations to request and collect secure payments through text messages.
“Our customers have always been able to use a link to pay, but this allows our customers to make payments via the text so it is a lot more streamlined for them,” said Brian Elrod, co-founder and CEO of Text Request, in a phone interview with the Times Free Press.
Rob Reagan, the chief technology officer and one of the co-founders of Text Request, said the new partnership will allow existing and new Text Request clients to process payments securely through Authvia within the Text Request platform.
“Authvia’s innovation around security and the ability to bring your own payment processor make them a clear leader in this space, and the perfect partner to bring this new feature to life,” Reagan wrote in an announcement of the new partnership Tuesday. “Particularly since the pandemic started, businesses have been looking for more and better ways to engage their audiences virtually, including through contactless payments.”