South Africa's Clickatell Lands a $ 91 Million Investment

Both Mobile communications and chat commerce firm Clickatell publicized it has secured $91 million in a Series C round of funding, headed by Arrowroot Capital, contributing from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, Endeavor Global, and Harvest.  

The investors of Clickatell include Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, Arrowroot Capital, Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, Endeavor Global, and Harvest.  

As such, the company born in South Africa says it has landed Series C funding worth $91 million, or some R1.4 billion, and now it plans to go on a hiring spree.  

Clickatell is headquartered in the USA but has its most significant contingent of developers in Cape Town.  

It announced, on Tuesday, the fundraising led by Arrowroot Capital allocated for use to expand its presence in “chat commerce” and is expanding its footprint in the USA. It is also topping its sales and marketing “on the back of growing demand from leading brands.”  

The company noted it would use the latest capital injection to scale and expand three critical areas related to accelerated development and innovation.   

This also includes expanding its footprint in the U.S. and increasing sales and marketing efforts supported by growing demand from leading brands.  

The company serves more than 10,000 customers, including Fortune 500 companies and leading global brands such as Coca-Cola, Deloitte, G.T. Bank, Booking.com, GoDaddy, IKEA, Novartis, Standard Bank, Tangerine, Telegram, U.S. Foods, Visa, Zipcar, Capitec, and others.  

“Chat commerce is the future of digital commerce and engagement – it’s already happening at scale in markets such as China — and soon every consumer in the U.S. will engage family and friends via chat plus connect, interact and transact with the brands they love through their favorite chat platform; and we are excited to be a leader in this digital engagement revolution,” said Pieter de Villiers.  

With 7.7 billion users compared to 4.7 billion internet users, Clickatell said that Chat is the most prominent digital platform globally, making it impossible for businesses to operate without communicating and transacting with consumers in chat channels. 

Chat commerce enables businesses to easily facilitate significantly improved customer experiences through Chat, with the added benefit of being far more efficient for customers and operational costs.