New unicorn company in the 2B software field
According to foreign media VentureBeat, communications company Sendbird recently completed a $100 million Series C financing. This round of financing was led by Steadfast Financial, and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, previous investors ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global Management and Meritech Capital participated in the follow-up investment. Up to now, Sendbird has raised about 221 million U.S. dollars, with a valuation of 1.05 billion U.S. dollars, and it has become a unicorn company in the B2B software field.
Sendbird was established in South Korea in 2013 and is currently headquartered in Silicon Valley. As a 2B customer communication service provider, Sendbird helps companies integrate real-time chat, voice and video customer service channels into their apps. In addition, the team is also developing a group voice conversation service, allowing customers to build their own corporate version of Clubhouse.
Image source | Sendbird official website
Sendbird is in a considerable market. Although companies can already choose from a large number of free existing tools to contact customers, such as Zoom or WhatsApp, personalization and control are not ideal, and companies cannot obtain platform data feedback to improve user experience. Therefore, many companies have to customize solutions internally, but most companies are actually unwilling to consume resources to build their own communication ecology. In recent years, end consumers have increasingly expected to be able to conduct online conversations with companies directly through mobile apps, and enterprise internal software has gradually germinated a trend of centralization shifting to cloud and service applications. Sendbird is one of the leaders of this megatrend.
Nowadays, more and more brands choose in-app chat instead of SMS as a way of customer service. This interactive method can effectively retain users while providing services, build brand loyalty, and attract more traffic. consumption.
Image source | Sendbird official website
Since the B round of financing in 2019, the company’s valuation has almost doubled, and the number of monthly active users and applications using its services has increased by three times. Sendbird currently serves communities such as Reddit and Yahoo Sports, food delivery and bike-sharing platforms such as Delivery Hero, Ola and iFood, and financial technology companies such as PayPay, Paytm and Picpay, with end users reaching 150 million. In addition, Sendbird also has a small number of traditional corporate customers, such as Korea Telecom and ServiceNow, but the company has not yet classified traditional industries as key service targets.
Sendbird’s competitors include listed companies Twilio, MessageBird (also a highly capitalized company), PubNub, Sinch, Postman, Kong, etc. In the past year, companies including MessageBird, Postman, and Kong have raised large sums of money at multi-billion dollar valuations.
The founder of the company believes that although competition in this field is becoming increasingly fierce, since many vertical industries have not yet adopted efficient and convenient customer communication channels, the market still has great potential. Sendbird plans to use the funds to expand recruitment, accelerate the development of new features, and expand more partners.
Edit | Chen Shuya