Zinc Inc.
Zinc Inc. is a San Francisco-based company that built a mobile messaging app for businesses. It started in May 2013 as Cotap Inc., founded by Jim Patterson and Zack Parker, former Yammer executives. Unlike consumer chat apps that use phone numbers, Cotap connects people through their corporate email domains.
The company raised funds to grow, including about $5.5 million in a Series A led by Charles River Ventures and Emergence Capital Partners, followed by $10 million in a Series B in January 2014. Cotap released its first iOS app in October 2013, an Android app in February 2014, and by August 2014 added a Mac and Web app with cloud-storage integrations to Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. These apps let users send messages to individuals and groups within a company.
In 2016 Cotap renamed itself Zinc and named Stacey Epstein as CEO. Zinc continued to raise money, including about $11 million in April 2017 from GE Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Emergence, and Charles River. In 2019, Zinc was acquired by ServiceMax to broaden its service-execution management offerings.
This page was last edited on 1 February 2026, at 22:51 (CET).