Amsterdam-based MessageBird flies with $200 million in Series C funding to grow its cloud communications platform, now valued at $3 billion

MessageBird, an Amsterdam-based tech startup and a provider of cloud communications platform that connects enterprises to their global customers, announced Thursday it raised $200 million in Series funding to meet the growing demands for its Omnichannel Platform-as-a-Service (OPaaS). The round, which now puts at a $3 billion valuation was led by venture capital firm Spark Capital.

Founded in 2011 by Adriaan Mol and Robert Vis, MessageBird is one of the world’s leading omnichannel cloud communications platform offering a suite of both Omnichannel Products and Cloud Communications API’s that enable developers and enterprises to communicate with customers in virtually every corner of the planet, and on any channel.  In October 2017 MessageBird announced a $60M Series A funding led by Accel, marking the largest Series A raised by any European software company or Y Combinator graduate to date.

MessageBird’s omnichannel platform approach enables businesses anywhere in the world to communicate and share rich media with any customer instantly across WhatsApp, SMS, Voice, Messenger, WeChat, Google Business Messaging, Line, and Telegram, while also collecting all customer interactions across channels into one single thread of truth. Today, MessageBird connects over 15,000 enterprises to their global customers via the fastest and most reliable SMS, Voice, and Chat APIs in the world. MessageBird team consists of people from over 20 nationalities from offices in Amsterdam, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, London, Hamburg, and Shanghai.

This latest investment, raised remotely during the lockdown, comes on the back of a global surge in demand for a wider range of messaging-first customer communication tools, across a much broader range of channels, as global businesses struggle to cope with the pivot from physical in-store and call center-based customer service to a fully remote workforce and online-only sales.

“I just want to live in a world where I can text with business and never get stuck waiting on hold again. MessageBird has pioneered OPaaS (Omnichannel Platform as a Service) based on the idea that global companies should have zero-friction communication with their customers anywhere in the world and on any channel they prefer,” said Robert Vis, MessageBird Founder & CEO. “This latest round is validation that there is pent up demand from customers all over the world who also want traditional businesses to move into this brave new messaging-first omnichannel world and we have the leading product on the market to help them do just that.”

“As consumers increasingly demand that businesses talk to them in the apps that they prefer, businesses are finally being forced to adopt omnichannel strategies at scale,” said Will Reed, General Partner at Spark Capital. “Robert and the MessageBird team have built the best platform to engage any customer on any channel, globally – along with a suite of software products that enhance and automate these interactions – enabling businesses to stand out in the new messaging-first world.”