- Personalized mobile messaging SaaS platform Attentive announced it raised $70 million in Series C funding
Attentive — a personalized mobile messaging SaaS platform for brands and organizations — announced it raised $70 million in Series C funding. This round of funding was led by Sequoia and IVP with participation from existing investors Eniac Ventures and NextView Ventures.
Including this round of funding, Attentive has raised a total of $124 million. Of the $124 million, $110 million was in the past 6 months.
What does Attentive do? Attentive offers a personalized mobile messaging platform for innovative brands. It uses real-time behavioral data and automatically sends engaging text messages to each subscriber at every step of the customer lifecycle.
Attentive is partnered with over 750 businesses like Coach, Urban Outfitters, CB2, PacSun, Lulus, Party City, and Jack in the Box. And the company’s client list jumped 347% in the last year.
These businesses have seen strong performance such as over 30% increases in click-through rates and more than 25 times ROI.
“In a few years, brands will be expected to engage in real-time, two-way conversations with their customers via mobile messaging,” said Brian Long, Co-Founder and CEO of Attentive. “You will see every business using personalized messages to communicate everything from marketing, transactions, and customer service—across the entire lifecycle. Our mission is to create the best-in-class solution for engaging with today’s mobile-first consumers.”
“Attentive’s growth is a clear indication that people want to interact with brands in new ways, and brands are embracing messaging as an effective way to reach consumers,” said Sequoia Capital partner Pat Grady. “We are thrilled to double down on our partnership with Attentive so they can continue to deliver fantastic results for their customers and valuable experiences for consumers.”
Following the company’s Series B round in August 2019 — which was also led by Sequoia, Attentive scaled its product teams and made some key hires. The company’s engineering organization grew 160% since then. And Attentive increased its headcount 228% in 2019. The company also set up teams across a wide variety of functions in Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, and Indianapolis along with expanding its headquarters in New York City.
“Mobile messaging is the fastest-growing channel for businesses to communicate with consumers, and we believe Attentive is strongly positioned here as the category leader,” explained IVP general partner Thomas Loverro. “The team has grown the company and its product in a thoughtful, impressive way and that is reflected in Attentive quickly emerging as the trusted solution for the largest brands in the world. We’re excited to continue partnering with the Attentive founders and team.”
This round of funding will be used for accelerating innovation, including the building of sophisticated new platform functionalities. Plus the company is also planning market expansion in response to demand in several new industry verticals.
Attentive was founded by Brian Long, Andrew Jones, and Ethan Lo. Long and Jones were also founders of ad retargeting company TapCommerce (acquired by Twitter in 2014).
