WhatsApp customer engagement tool WATI.io raises $10 Mn as it grows revenues 5x in just 6 months

HONG KONG SAR – News
Direct – 8 December 2021 – WATI.io (WhatsApp Team
Inbox), a comprehensive WhatsApp customer engagement tool for small businesses,
has raised $8.3Mn in Series A led by Sequoia Capital India with participation
from Surge, Base Partners and several prominent angels including Gokul Rajaram,
a member of the DoorDash executive team and and board member at Coinbase and
Pinterest. WATI.io has over 3,000 customers 
across 54 countries including India, Indonesia and Brazil. Over the last
6 months, WATI’s customer base has seen a 4x growth, revenue has grown 5x and
100 million messages have been processed. They are now a 41 member team across
seven countries. With this fundraise, they have raised a total of $10M in the
last six months. The funds raised will be used to bolster technology and
product development by expanding product integrations. It will also be used to
double the team size and improve their presence in Latin America.

WATI founder – Bianca Ho and Ken Yeung

Messaging is the most pervasive way humans connect today. COVID-19 has
shifted our lives online. Customers expect brands to serve them on channels
they are most comfortable with. So, when customers are able to reach out to
brands on platforms like WhatsApp that they are already familiar with, it
builds a higher level of trust for the brand. While many solutions for
enterprises to achieve this shift exist, tens of millions of SMBs globally are
left underserved. To meet customer expectations, SMBs resort to using WhatsApp
on their personal phones. This leads to bottlenecks with relevance of the
support and the inability to scale.

WATI.io, launched by Ken Yeung and Bianca
Ho in late 2020, addresses this gap. Built on WhatsApp’s API, it
helps small businesses personalise conversations with customers at scale.
WATI.io helps ​​customer support, marketing and sales teams engage with customers
using a single WhatsApp number. Since brands are able to get a holistic view of
customer conversations across teams, they are also able to provide a better
user experience. WATI.io solely focuses on building tailored experiences on
WhatsApp enabling them to quickly iterate on new features on the platform as
well.

“WATI’s mission is to help
businesses do more with less. Our one-click integration with the most commonly
used tools like Shopify, WooCommerce, etc. enables businesses to provide
holistic customer experience at scale. We look to use this funding to attract
world class talent to help us build this.” Ken Yeung, CEO

Businesses love WATI.io because it helps improve customer satisfaction
without additional workforce and in turn helps improve revenue. This is
possible with automation through WATI’s low-code workflow builder without being
dependent on developers. Through WATI’s API, SMBs can send programmatic
personalised notifications from their system.

Especially in the case of ecommerce businesses, WATI’s one-click
integrations with tools like Shopify, reduces abandoned cart rate and helps
increase revenues. Marketers also rely heavily on sending targeted
notifications to drive sales. High growth startups are able to derive value
with WATI’s suite of tools which empower them to collaborate and move fast. In
addition to thousands of SMBs, WATI’s clients include Dukaan, Oppo, VU TV,
Gojek, Grab, Aerostreet.