Clickatell closes $12 million for bulk SMS

Sequoia Capital and DAG Ventures lead Series B round for decade-old text messaging company

Bulk SMS service Clickatell announced Monday that it has secured $12 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital and DAG Ventures. Ethos Private Equity is another of the company's backers.
 
Clickatell offers a vast variety of text messaging-related solutions for both small and medium-sized businesses as well as for the enterprise. The company preceded “there’s an app for that” with their own philosophy: there’s an SMS service for that.
 
For example, marketers can promote their business to mobile users via SMS. Or, if a business offers social networking capabilities, that business can augment that network with communication via text. Mobile banking? There’s an SMS service for that too; Clickatell gives banks and other financial institutions the ability to text customers account balances and more.

Early on, Clickatell saw the power of text-based messaging. Around 6.1 trillion texts were sent in 2010, triple the amount from 2007. Clickatell was created in 2000.

“Clickatell was early in recognizing the immense power of mobile messaging to transform the customer experience. With the capacity to reach some 70 percent of the world’s population, Personalized Priority Messaging can help companies of all sizes create more welcoming and helpful brands by delivering just the right message, to the right person at the right time,” said Pieter de Viliers, CEO and co-founder of Clickatell. “Mobile is the new medium of consumer engagement, and brands from Lagos to London are recognizing this.”

The sheer scope of Clickatell’s business is astounding: 869 mobile networks, more than 223 countries and territories, and over 13,000 customers, including several of the Fortune 500.

Bulk SMS packages through Clickatell vary depending on volume size. Some clients may need to send as little as 2,500 messages at once, while others may send over 10,000.

Clickatell says it will use the new funding to expand into new service areas and regions. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. and holds offices in South Africa.