Front App Inc. wants to retool the traditional email inbox for the era of team chat applications and cross-platform customer interactions, and today it said it has raised $66 million to expand its efforts.

Sequoia Capital led the round, with participation from DFJ Capital. The San Francisco-based startup will use the financing to step up customer acquisition efforts as part of a push that is set to see it open a new European headquarters in Paris. The expansion represents a return to roots of sorts for Front, which was based out of the French capital before relocating to the Bay Area in 2014.

The startup offers a collaborative spin on the inbox that aims to help companies interact with customers in a more streamlined manner. Front can organize the messages sent to a public-facing channel, such as a firm’s official Twitter account or an email address reserved for support inquiries, in a feed that resembles a Slack channel. The centralized interface enables teams to coordinate responses without many of the small chores normally involved in the task.

Front also offers a set of specialized features designed to further ease the workflow. For starters, the service includes a task management capability that lets a manager relegate inquires to specific employees. It’s joined by a tagging tool for organizing messages and an embedded commenting system that enables users to discuss how a certain request should be handled.

Complementing the core controls is a rule-based workflow engine that Front says makes it possible to automate certain interactions. A firm could, for example, have the application automatically respond to customers who email the support department on a weekend with a message detailing when they can expect to hear back.

The 2,500-plus companies that rely on Front include Stripe Inc., Dropbox Inc., HubSpot Inc. and other big names from the tech industry. Front claims to have processed 353 million messages during 2017 alone. 

Image: Front