SendBird,
the fully customizable chat and messaging API service for mobile and web
applications, today announced that it has raised an additional $50
million, bringing its total Series B funding round to $102 million. The
company extended the round in order to meet the rapidly growing global
demand for in-app user-to-user messaging. Tiger Global Management led
the extension, with significant participation from the initial Series B
lead, ICONIQ Capital.
The company has rapidly established itself as the world’s leading in-app
messaging platform and API. In 2018, SendBird tripled the number of
messages sent through its platform, now surpassing 1 billion messages
per month, and grew beyond 50 million monthly active users. It also
increased its full-time employees (FTEs) from 70 to 98 since January of
2019, after growing 180% in 2018.
“SendBird has emerged as the category leader, recognizing the immense
demand from businesses for a chat and messaging solution and meeting
these needs with a customer-focused product and API. As a result, the
momentum has been strong,” said Matthew Jacobson, General Partner at
ICONIQ Capital. “By championing software engineering teams, extending
their ability to build, scale and maintain complex chat and messaging
infrastructures, SendBird continues to serve and delight customers. The
company’s enthusiastic reaction in Europe and Asia demonstrates a large
global opportunity we will continue to invest against.”
Currently, 76% of the world population uses messenger apps. Yet to date,
widespread global adoption of user-to-user messaging in business
applications has been hindered by key factors. First, the messaging
market has been consolidated among only a handful of messenger apps.
Second, in-app user-to-user messaging is difficult for engineering teams
to build and maintain.
With SendBird’s product and expertise in messaging technology,
businesses can now incorporate this globally adopted messaging channel
into their apps easily without the large dedicated engineering teams it
once required. SendBird gives businesses everything they need to add
user-to-user messaging to their app, while it continuously innovates the
messaging experience so users remain captivated and businesses can drive
key goals forward.
“Our primary goal for the next 2 years is to really build our market
presence as the leader of the industry. Starting from marketing and
sales, we are building the go-to-market engine to scale our global
presence by hiring leaders in key areas of the business and building
teams around those leaders,” said CEO John S. Kim. “The second important
reason is to build and master global operations. We’ve already hired in
UK, Singapore, and India. And we continue to hire rapidly in our two
main locations, US and Korea. Since our customers are global, we aim to
build global operations as our core competency. The portfolios of our
new investors have built a strong muscle for building global software
companies, so we’re excited to learn from their experience through this
partnership.”
In conjunction with the additional $50 million in Series B funding,
SendBird has opened offices in Singapore, London, and Bengaluru.
To learn more about how SendBird works and how it can help your
organization, please visit https://sendbird.com.
About SendBird
SendBird is a fully customizable chat and messaging platform with a
managed infrastructure for mobile and web applications. It provides the
necessary Software Development Kits (SDK) and API, front- and back-end
technology so that businesses can launch a customized in-app messaging
experience quickly, efficiently, and at scale. SendBird powers in-app
conversation for the world’s leading companies in industries ranging
from marketplaces, on-demand, and gaming to online communities, video
streaming, and healthcare. It has SDKs for almost any platform,
including iOS, Android, Javascript, React Native, .NET, and Unity.
SendBird’s top global customers include NBA, Yahoo! Sports, GO-JEK,
Carousell, Virgin Mobile UAE, SEGA, Wargaming, Glu Mobile, Healthline,
TriNet, Accolade, Yell, Hinge, Kookmin Bank, LG U+, SSG. It is backed by
Shasta Ventures, August Capital, ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global
Management, Y Combinator, and FundersClub. It is based in San Mateo,
California.
Please visit https://sendbird.com
for more information.
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