Knowlarity raises Series C round of $20mn led by Delta Partners
Knowlarity, Asia's leading cloud communications platform in emerging markets across Asia, has raised $20 million in its Series C funding round led by a Dubai-based private equity firm Delta Partners, and their existing investors, Sequoia India and Mayfield. The round also included a small debt-based investment from Blacksoil and Trifecta Capital. The funds raised would be used to expand into other international markets, make acquisitions, and invest in advanced technology products for its customers.
Founded in 2009, Singapore-based Knowlarity is the pioneer and leading provider of cloud-based communications solutions to businesses in the emerging markets, with a user base of more than two million.
Speaking on the investment, Ambarish Gupta, Founder and CEO of Knowlarity, said, “The success of the latest funding round is a strong indication of the trust our investors have in our vision as well as in our strong focus on robust unit economics, which has seen us recently achieve EBITDA breakeven. We are excited about the investment and the quality of investors coming on board. With the domain expertise they bring on board, we are confident that we will be able to provide even more innovative Consumer to Business Communication solutions to businesses around the world and establish ourselves as global leaders in the segment.”
Signal Hill, a leading independent M&A and private capital advisory firm, was the exclusive financial advisor on this transaction. The latest investment takes the total funds raised by Knowlarity so far to $41 million making it the most capitalised cloud telephony company in Asia.
Dominic Halfpenny, Partner at Delta Partners Capital, commented, “Knowlarity has established itself as the leading player in the Consumer to Business Communications industry in India, and is now exporting this expertise internationally, thanks to its superior product and relentless focus on customer service. We are excited to participate in this fascinating and fast-evolving industry and look forward to actively supporting the management team at Knowlarity reach the next level of growth both in India and internationally, in the Middle East, Africa, and South-East Asia.”
Knowlarity’s flagship product is ‘Super Receptionist’, a plug-and-play virtual contact centre for a business. Internally, the company employs 300 globally, eight offices in India, South East Asia, and Middle East, and 1,000 partners, including Google, Amazon, Uber, Practo, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, and Gaadi among others. Having pioneered the technology of PSTN cloud telephony in India, Knowlarity currently serves more than 15,000 customers across several emerging markets. The company will look forward to keeping up its aggressive growth and expanding into more markets in the future as it sets its sights on becoming a leading global name in communications technology.
They had raised their series A and B rounds worth $6.6 million and $16 million in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Earlier this year, in May, Knowlarity had acquired Delhi-based Smartwards, a customer engagement platform, thus integrating the Smartwards’ product and technology into its own product ecosystem to provide enterprise software solutions to small and medium businesses.