CleverTap, a business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for customer engagement and retention, has signed a definitive pact to raise $105 million (₹832 crore) in its Series D funding round led by Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ).
CDPQ has committed to invest $75 million, said CleverTap in a statement. IIFL AMC’s Tech Fund and existing investors Tiger Global and Sequoia India also participated, it said.
CleverTap, run by WizRocket Technologies Pvt. Ltd, will use the fresh funds to strengthen its presence in key markets and also expand its team, said Sunil Thomas, co-founder and executive chairman.
Sidharth Malik, CEO, CleverTap, said recent acquisitions helped the company expand its foothold in North America and Europe, and boost its leadership in verticals such as on-demand and subscription.
In May, CleverTap agreed to buy multichannel customer engagement platform Leanplum for an undisclosed sum.
Founded by Sunil Thomas, Anand Jain and Suresh Kondamudi in 2013, CleverTap is an integrated retention cloud that allows digital consumer brands to boost customer retention and lifetime value. It drives context and individualization with the help of a unified and deep data layer, artificial intelligence or machine learning-powered insights and automation.
Prior to this funding round, CleverTap raised $35 million in a Series C round led by existing investors Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital in October 2019. It also raised an undisclosed sum from Japan-based diversified consumer and business services provider Recruit Holdings Co in 2018. In 2015, CleverTap raised $8 million from Sequoia Capital India and existing investor Accel Partners.
Martin Laguerre, executive vice-president and head of private equity, CDPQ, pointed that CleverTap has established itself as a partner of choice for its clients by helping them generate significant incremental revenue.
“As consumer brands are increasingly focused on customer retention and prioritize tools offering tangible return on investment, we believe CleverTap is well positioned to maintain its global growth trajectory and help more businesses enhance their customer experience,“ added Laguerre.
CDPQ, which began investing in India in 2016, has so far invested Canadian $8 billion in the country across infrastructure, real estate, public markets, fixed income and private equity. It has also made bets in new age companies including e-pharmacy firm PharmEasy.
Chetan Naik, Fund Manager and Senior Executive Vice-President, Private Equity at IIFL AMC, said that enterprises are increasingly looking to engage with customers in a real time and in a personalized manner across digital channels.
“CleverTap’s full stack approach to customer engagement allows them to perform user analytics and run personalized customer campaigns on a real-time basis which enables companies to improve user retention and understand user journeys across channels,” added Naik.
IIFL AMC is part of Mumbai-based financial services provider IIFL Group’s IIFL Wealth and Asset Management business, which advises more than 6,700 HNIs (high networth individuals) and wealthy families handling aggregate assets under management (AUM) of more than $44 billion.
Ambit acted as the exclusive financial advisor to CleverTap.
