April 18, 2024

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[INVESTOR] SendBird, a B2B chat API provider, has raised US$16 million in Series A round of funding from two US venture capital firms, according to the company on Dec. 20.

The funding round was led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms Shasta Ventures and August Capital.

This adds to SendBird’s seed funding of US$2.6 million from other investors including Y Combinator and FundersClub. 

SendBird US team

California-based SendBird is a B2B startup that provides a chat API and software development kit for mobile apps and websites which are increasingly using in-app chat function for users.

The company said it currently serves 7,200 applications including one of the largest social network website based in the US and Indonesia’s riding-share startup GO-JEK. Its Korean customers include gaming giant Nexon, e-commerce company Ticket Monster and KB Kookmin Bank.

SendBird was launched in 2015 in Korea by John S. Kim, Brandon Jeon, Harry Kim and Forest Lee, as a chat solution for mobile and web applications. It has since moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley, while retaining its research and development office and Asia-Pacific branch in Seoul.

“It’s our mission to digitize human interactions for businesses,” said the CEO Kim. “With the new round of funding, we can accelerate our plans to help companies rapidly increase the engagement and retention of their users by enabling real-time conversation with our chat API.

“We have seen a massive adoption of messaging and API services across enterprise and consumer apps,” August Venture partner Villi Iltchev said

“With Shasta’s partnership, SendBird will be able to double-down on its product’s strength and continue to attract top engineering talent,” Doug Pepper, managing director at Shasta Ventures noted.
Iltchev and Pepper are set to join SendBird’s board of directors.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)