全球许多企业使用面向消费者的聊天应用，如WhatsApp、Telegram、Discord或iMessage，与员工进行交流和协调，并交换文档或数据。
Many businesses around the world use consumer-facing chat apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord or iMessage to talk and coordinate with staff, and exchange documents or data.
Guy Weiss正在打造Zenzap，这是一款带有人工智能功能的私人即时通讯工具，旨在帮助企业与员工沟通，并为他们提供组织背景信息，同时确保符合IT和安全规则。
Guy Weiss is building Zenzap, a private messenger with AI that wants to help companies communicate with their staff and arm them with their organization’s context while staying in line with IT and security rules.
该公司已从包括Bessemer、Lightspeed和The Garage在内的投资者处筹得4400万美元融资，此外还包括个人投资者Wix总裁Nir Zohar以及前EY总经理Yoram Tietz。
The company has raised $44 million in funding from investors including Bessemer, Lightspeed, and The Garage, as well as individual investors Wix President Nir Zohar and former GM of EY, Yoram Tietz.
此次融资之所以有趣，是因为Weiss这是职业生涯中首次融资。2012年，他自行启动了电子商务营销平台StuccoMedia，并于2015年将其出售给Market Group。此后，他成为了一名投资者，持续了几年。2022年，在与Bessemer合伙人Adam Fisher会面并与现任联合创始人Noam Neumann和Jonatan Bien一起构思不同想法后，他创立了Zenzap。
The fundraise is interesting because Weiss is raising money for the first time in his career. In 2012, he bootstrapped e-commerce marketing platform StuccoMedia, and sold it to Market Group in 2015. After that, he became an investor for a few years. In 2022, he founded Zenzap after meeting Bessemer partner Adam Fisher and noodling on different ideas along with his current co-founders Noam Neumann and Jonatan Bien.
Weiss表示，他最初是自行启动该应用，并在Bessemer的办公室工作。
Weiss said he initially bootstrapped the app and worked out of Bessemer’s office.
“我当时不想融资。我唯一可能失去的只是我的名字，我非常害怕作为创始人进行第二轮融资并以失败告终，因为我的第一轮融资非常成功。我不需要为钱而工作。所以，当我遇到Adam时，我实际上用自己的资金启动了这个想法，”他对TechCrunch说。
“I didn’t want to raise capital. The only thing I had to lose was my name, and I was super afraid to do a second round as a founder and become a failure, because my first round was very successful. I didn’t need to work for money. So, when I met Adam, I actually started my idea with my own capital,” he told TechCrunch.
Weiss表示，Fisher说服他，Zenzap应该成为一家获风险投资支持的企业，因为公司需要资本来实现规模化扩张。
Weiss said Fisher convinced him that Zenzap should be a venture-backed business, as the company would need capital to scale.
他说，这个想法是打造一款面向广泛企业的即时通讯应用，涵盖酒店业、建筑业、医疗保健和快餐等多个行业。
He said that the idea was to build a messaging app for a wide range of businesses, ranging from hospitality and construction, to healthcare and fast food.
“你不能在工作场所使用带有 AI 代理的 WhatsApp 或 iMessage，因为它不符合 IT 要求。所以这不可行。你也不能实施 Slack 和 Microsoft Teams，因为它们并不是为这种面向移动优先的日常使用场景而构建的，而这种场景是为普通用户设计的，”韦斯说。Zenzap 在其免费层级提供常规聊天功能，包括群聊和直接消息、任务管理、日历集成、日程管理，以及 AI 驱动的语音聊天和搜索。
“You can’t use WhatsApp or iMessage within a workplace with the AI agent on top of it because it doesn’t comply with IT. So that’s off the table. You can’t implement Slack and Microsoft Teams because they were not built for this day-to-day use case for mobile-first that is meant for average users,” Weiss said Zenzap offers usual chat features on its free tier, including group chats and direct messages, task management, calendar integration, schedule management, as well as AI-powered voice chat and search.
组织可以付费购买起价为每月 51 美元、最多支持 20 名用户的套餐，以解锁语音和视频通话、智能任务排序、任务模板以及更高的文件存储限制。付费层级还允许你在工作区内使用 AI 搜索，并将消息转换为任务。
Organizations can pay for plans starting from $51 per month for up to 20 users to unlock voice and video calls, smart task sorting, task templates, and higher limits on file storage. The paid tier also lets you use the AI search across the workspace and turn messages into tasks.
该公司还提供用于工作流自动化的 AI 代理，以及 AI 辅助的语音笔记和通话转录。对于这些功能，它采用基于积分的定价系统。
The company also offers AI agents for workflow automation as well as AI-aided voice note and call transcriptions. For these features, it has a credit-based pricing system.
目前，Zenzap 将 FedEx、美元树、塔可钟、星巴克、凯西和瑞吉列为客户。韦斯补充说，IHOP 和麦当劳等快餐连锁店的分店经常在其平台上协调班次并讨论供应情况。
At the moment, Zenzap lists organizations like FedEx, Dollar General, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Casey’s, and Regal as clients. Weiss added that branches of fast food chains like IHOP and McDonald’s often coordinate shifts and talk about supply on its platform.
“每个垂直领域都有其自身的使用场景和工作流程，他们通过 AI 自行服务，但他们都有一些共同点，”他说。
“Each vertical has its own use case and workflows, which they self-serve with AI, but they all share something in common,” he said.
这家初创公司在美国、特拉维夫和欧洲共有 50 名员工。在不久的将来，公司计划在其产品和研发部门招聘人员。
The startup has 50 staff in the U.S., Tel Aviv, and Europe. In the near future, the company wants to hire in its product and R&D departments.
贝塞默的费舍尔表示，Zenzap 专注于服务广泛人群的策略可能对其有利。他说，即使这家风投公司也在其投资团队内部使用该即时通讯工具来讨论和管理交易流程，这表明它能够服务于不同类型的受众。
Bessemer’s Fisher said Zenzap’s focus on catering to a broad range of people could work in its favor. He said that even the venture firm is using the messenger within its investment team to discuss and manage deal flows, showing that it can cater to different kinds of audiences.
“只有 Slack 这一个工作平台有任何忠诚度，而且几乎完全局限于开发者社区。Zendesk 不专注于开发者，而是专注于其余 99% 使用个人消息应用并等待专属客服的员工。人们迫切希望工作与个人生活能够明确分离，而个人和工作代理的采用使得这种分离变得刻不容缓。”他在向 TechCrunch 发送的电子邮件声明中表示。
“The only work platform with any allegiance is Slack, and that’s almost entirely among the developer community. Zendesk is not focused on developers, but on the other 99% of employees using personal messaging apps and waiting for an agent of their own. People desperately want a clear separation of work from their personal lives, and the adoption of personal and work agents makes it imperative that separation happen now,” he said TechCrunch in an emailed statement.