<p>The rush of new mobile messaging apps, building on the popularity of services like WhatsApp and Line, continues apace, with the latest twist is a service for business users. CoTap, an app co-founded by Yammer ex-chief product officer Jim Patterson and ex-senior director of engineering Zack Parker, has picked up a $5.5 million Series A round led by Charles River Ventures, an early Yammer investor before Microsoft bought that company for $1.2 billion. CoTap is still in stealth mode but plans to use the funding to staff up and help launch its first app, a free service, later this year for iOS and Android devices.</p><p>Also participating in the round was Emergence Capital Partners, another early Yammer investor. As part of the investment, CRV partner George Zachary and Jason Green from Emergence Capital Partners will be joining CoTap's board of directors</p><p>Just as Yammer brought already-popular Facebook-style social media services into the workplace years ago, CoTap's enterprise service mimics WhatsApp, MessageMe and Line in mobile messaging, but in a more secure, private, enterprise-friendly format.</p><p>Consumer messaging apps have disrupted carrier-controlled, metered SMS with their fast, feature-filled services, and while CoTap may not be launching cute stickers any time soon, the idea will be to bring a similar function to business users. In the words of Patterson, CoTap's CEO, it will remove some of the "overhead of email" such as salutations and signatures and get right down to the essence of what you need to say to someone in a faster, and maybe more casual way.</p><p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/29/ex-yammer-execs-raise-5-5m-for-cotap-a-mobile-messaging-app-aiming-to-be-whatsapp-for-the-workplace/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/cotap-lands-5-5-million-in-funding-workplace-mobile-messaging-7000016036/">CoTap lands $ 5.5 million in funding; workplace mobile messaging</a> (ZDNet)</p><p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130529-905697.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">CoTap Completes $ 5.5 Million Series A Financing Round</a> (Wall Street Journal (press release))</p><p><a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/05/29/ex-yammer-execs-get-55m-to-bring.html">Ex-Yammer execs get $ 5.5M to bring texting to work</a> (Silicon Valley Business Journal)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=d1W3evqwrEoC1-MdjF7wYY60AhbQM&ned=us">7 additional articles.</a></p>