Customer engagement platform Exotel raises $40 million funding led by Steadview Capital

Exotel cofounder Shivakumar Ganesan

Bengaluru-based Exotel has raised $40 million (Rs 298 crore) in its Series D funding round led by Steadview Capital as the customer engagement platform looks to strengthen its presence in markets such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia as well as shop around for more omnichannel and full-stack capabilities.  

With this, the startup said it has raised around $100 million across multiple debt and equity financing rounds over the past 15 months.

"Enterprises want to unify their customer journeys to deliver connected experiences across touchpoints like web chat, co-browsing, and video. This involves bringing together disconnected channels, bots, applications with siloed customer data across teams. We are enabling this over the cloud with our full-stack platform," said Exotel cofounder Shivakumar Ganesan.

Started in 2011, Exotel allows companies to manage customer engagement through an omnichannel contact centre, a suite of communication APIs (application programming interfaces) and a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform over the cloud.

It offers a suite of customer engagement products across voice, text messages, VoIP (voice over internet protocol) calling, and user authentication, among others. Last year, the startup merged with contact centre platform Ameyo in June and acquired conversational AI platform Cogno AI in November.

Exotel claims to have signed up more than 1,300 customers including ITC Salaam in Saudi Arabia, Tata Consultancy Services, Bajaj Allianz, City Mall, Krazybee, and Shadowfax in the last 12 months.

The firm said its annualised recurring revenue (ARR) has crossed the $50 million mark and is growing 70% with a goal to hit $200 million ARR over the next four years.

Steadview Capital founder Ravi Mehta said, "Customer engagement is critical to businesses across India, Asia Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, especially in the light of the ongoing impact of the pandemic. Exotel has grown rapidly to emerge as the clear category leader for solving such problems, enabling its clients to more easily communicate with consumers across engagement channels."