Tanla Appoints Former TRAI Chairman Dr. RS Sharma to its Board of Directors

Tanla Platforms Limited (NSE:TANLA, BSE:532790), India's leading CPaaS player announced the appointment of former TRAI Chairman Dr. RS Sharma to its board of directors, bringing the total number of directors on Tanla's Board to 7.

“Dr. Sharma's incredible vision and track record in India's digital transformation journey makes him an invaluable addition to Tanla's august board." said Uday Reddy, Founder Chairman and CEO. “We are excited to learn from his pioneering experiences & advice for continued success of Tanla Platforms globally.”

Dr. Sharma had a distinguished career in the Government of close to five decades driving India's digital transformation.

He was Chairman of the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) between 2015 to 2020 and his tenure was marked by initiatives promoting net neutrality and consumer rights. Over the years, he has spearheaded multiple Government initiatives. As Chairman of the Empowered Group of COVID vaccine Administration (EGVAC), Dr. Sharma steered the design and roll out of Co-Win - the digital backbone of vaccination drive in India, which won international acclaim. As the CEO of National Health Authority (NHA), he was instrumental in implementing two health initiatives of the Government of India, Ayushman Bharat Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). He is also best known for the role he played as Director General & Mission Director of the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) in the years 2009 - 2013.

“Tanla is adept at harnessing disruptive technologies. And I see how they have innovated to foster trust in the CPaaS ecosystem.” said Dr. Sharma. “Joining the board of such a forward-thinking technology company is really an opportunity to contribute to nation building."

An Indian Administrative Service officer since 1978, Dr Sharma holds a PhD in Management and Public Policy from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, Masters in Computer Sciences from the University of California, USA and Masters in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Dr Sharma also holds an LLB degree.

About Tanla:

Tanla Platforms Limited transforms the way the world collaborates and communicates through innovative CPaaS solutions. Founded in 1999, it was the first company to develop and deploy A2P SMSC in India. Today, as one of the world's largest CPaaS players, it processes more than 800 billion interactions annually and about 63% of India's A2P SMS traffic is processed through Trubloq, making it the world's largest Blockchain use case. Wisely, our patented enterprise-grade platform offers private, secure, and trusted experiences for enterprises and mobile carriers. Tanla Platforms Limited is headquartered in Hyderabad. Tanla is listed on two national exchanges, the NSE and BSE (NSE: TANLA; BSE:532790) and is included in prestigious indices such as the Nifty 500, BSE 500, Nifty Digital Index, FTSE Russell, and MSCI.

Tata Communications Acquiring Kaleyra, Formerly Ubiquity That Acquired An Indian Startup in 2016

Tata Communications, a global digital ecosystem enabler, on Wednesday announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement through Tata Communications Limited to acquire NYSE listed Kaleyra, Inc. in a cash only transaction, at a price per share of USD 7.25 for a total consideration to Kaleyra shareholders of approximately USD 100 million and the assumption of all outstanding debt.

Kaleyra is a New York-headquartered global Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) company, with a set of proprietary platforms, offering targeted personalisation through messaging, video, push notifications, e-mail and voice-based services, and chatbots.

Interestingly, Kaleyra was previously known as Ubiquity which was rebranded to Kaleyra after 2 years of making acquisition of the Bengaluru, India-based CPaaS startup "Solutions Infiniti" in 2016. Founded in 1999 as Ubiquity in Italy by Dario Calogero, Kaleyra was earlier an Italian firm which became a listed company in NYSE America (NYSE:KLR) in November 2019.

Italian company Ubiquity and Indian Cloud telephony start-up Solutions Infini come together for the unveiling under a new brand “Kaleyra.” pic.twitter.com/RX4ayP9IS4

— Solutions Infini (@solutionsinfini) June 25, 2018

Led by Solutions Infinity co-founder Ashish Agarwal Kaleyra transitioned into the US capital markets as a public company.

Solutions Infini was founded in 2009, by Aniketh Jain and Ashish Agarwal. It was in October 2016 when the Bengaluru based startup announced that the-then Ubiquity had acquired 51% stake in it, for an undisclosed amount, and later in June 2018 both the entities announced merger as well as rebranding to Kaleyra, with India's Solutions Infiniti founders picking up minor stakes in Kaleyra group.

More interestingly, before acquiring Solutions Infini, Ubiquity was also a strategic investor itself in the Bengaluru-based startup.

So, Kaleyra, formerly Ubiquity (Italy), which once acquired Indian Startup, will be a part of Indian conglomorate Tata Group's Tata Communications.

Upon closing of the transaction, expected in six to nine months, Kaleyra Inc. will become a subsidiary of Tata Communications. 

Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) Market is Expected to Surge at ~US$ 60 Bn by 2032

According to Future Market Insights (FMI), demand registered in the market will increase at a CAGR of around 25.0% from 2022-2032. Sales in the communication platform as a service (CPaaS) market are anticipated to reach ~US$ 60 Bn by 2032.

The report states that the market is expected to reach a valuation of ~US$ 6,384.4 Mn by the end of 2022. As per Future Market Insights, the growing demand for flexible communication platforms is expected to boost sales of CPaaS solutions.

Communications platform as a service or CPaaS solutions are referred to as cloud solutions that enable organizations to add real-time communication features to business applications. These solutions are adaptable and scalable, and unite the latest integrated communication services into a single offering.

Communications platform as a service brings together several types of communications, including calls, emails, and SMS for enhanced customer engagement. The emergence of Omni-channel methods for customer management is set to increase the demand for CPaaS solutions in the banking and financial sector. Insurance firms, banks, and payment providers require a secure platform for providing rapid and dependable services to customers while preventing fraud. CPaaS solutions have proved to be a secure real-time communication platform across the BFSI industry.

CPaaS solutions are becoming more popular, especially in the banking sector as these provide personalized offerings. CPaaS services, on the other hand, deliver on boarding features and text reminders to customers, thereby reducing delinquency risk with compliance and security.

Furthermore, the implementation of CPaaS solutions results in early fraud detection with an outbound IVR facility. These facilities come along with additional options for immediate transfer to agents offering secure environments to customers for financial transactions. Such wide adoption is opening new opportunities for key players in the CPaaS market.

Key Takeaways

• By solution, the CPaaS software segment is predicted to lead the global communications platform as a service market with a CAGR of 2% during the forecast period.
• By enterprise size, the large enterprise segment is set to dominate with a CAGR of nearly 23% between 2022 and 2032.
• By industry, the healthcare segment is anticipated to exhibit an astonishing CAGR of 31% in the forthcoming years.
• By geography, North America had the largest market share of about 2% in the CPaaS industry in 2021.
• The South Asia & Pacific region is expected to witness the highest growth rate of around 7% throughout the forecast period of 2022-2032.

"Growing demand for customer communication and customer engagement across the BFSI and retail industries is expected to drive the global communications platform as a service market growth," says an FMI analyst.

Increasing Demand for CPaaS in Retail Industry to Drive the Market

Retail firms are utilizing CPaaS solutions to adapt to the hybrid environment of modern-day purchase requirements. Large-scale retail and consumer enterprises with multiple locations add cloud-based call routing solutions to ensure accurate routing of calls and SMS depending on location, time and need.

Several brick-and-mortar, as well as online merchants, utilize CPaaS solutions as the preferred business software. Such software solutions can circulate customized information, initiate in-store event registrations, offer segmented discount codes, and send sales alerts. In addition, the addition of SMS with a voice to the communication strategy is ensuring an increased footprint of products onto consumers.

Up-to-date and flexible real-time integrated communication services enable small- and large-scale retail businesses to embrace the rapidly evolving cloud communications market. Thus, increasing adoption in the retail industry is fueling market growth and is anticipated to continue its supremacy in the near future.

Rising Adoption of Chatbots to Enhance Customer Engagement Will Aid Growth

To enhance the process of interaction on a real-time basis, businesses are deploying chatbots and chat applications that interact with customers in an imaginative way. Chatbots and WhatsApp business APIs are two of the most popular use cases for CPaaS solutions. These chatbots are strategically designed to produce desired results with statistical information from the preceding information. The applicability of chatbots is becoming widespread with increased adoption among businesses for meaningful customer engagement.

Various organizations have integrated self-service chatbots for answering simple questions via conversational interfaces. One of the CNBC reports estimates that bots will handle 75-90% of the questions by the end of 2024. The growing adoption and application of chatbots would surge the demand for communications platforms as a service solution.

These insights are based on a report on Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) Market by Future Market Insights

CPaaS Revenue to Exceed $10 billion Globally in 2022, as Vendors Seek Further Platform Differentiation

A new study from Juniper Research has found the global value of the CPaaS market will exceed $10 billion for the first time next year; rising from $8.6 billion in 2021. This represents growth of 17% year-on-year. To capitalise on this remarkable growth, the research predicts CPaaS vendors will seek to further differentiate their services by integrating novel solutions directly into their service platforms. [CPaaS platforms offer a centralised management service for outbound communications, including SMS, OTT business messaging, RCS and voice services].

For more insights, download our free whitepaper: How CPaaS will be Disrupted in 2022

Customer Data Platforms – Key to Differentiation

The new study, CPaaS: Future Market Outlook & Emerging Opportunities 2021-2026, urges platform vendors to expand their range of value-added services to achieve this differentiation. The research identified the development of CDPs (customer data platforms) as a key service that will increase the significance of a CPaaS platform by providing actionable insights into end user preferences, such as contact time, contact channel and upselling opportunities. In turn, brands and enterprises using CPaaS platforms will enhance the value of mobile communications by automatically contacting users over preferred channels at preferred times.

Research author Sam Barker commented: “CDPs are an important step in creating differentiation in an increasingly saturated CPaaS market. As traffic over rich media channels increases, CDPs will enable brands and enterprises to tailor communications at a user level; creating a compelling and convenient experience for mobile subscribers.”

Rich Media Messaging to Benefit from CDPs

The report predicts contribution of rich media messaging formats will become increasingly significant in generating CPaaS vendor revenue. By 2026, over 20% of CPaaS revenue will be attributable to RCS and OTT business messaging channels; rising from less than 2% in 2021. As SMS business messaging traffic growth slows, the research advised platforms to onboard SMEs willing to explore rich media messaging. In turn, CPaaS platforms must then highlight the benefits that CDPs will bring to the rich media functionalities of OTT messaging channels to attract new customers.

Tanla Platforms Appoints Wipro Veteran Aravind Viswanathan as CFO

Firm’s move in line with its decision to focus on People, Platforms, Brand & Customer Success

Aravind Viswanathan

Hyderabad, India – 08 April 2021: Tanla Platforms Limited (NSE: TANLA; BSE:532790), India’s largest CPaaS provider announced the appointment of Aravind Viswanathan as Chief Financial Officer effective 1st June 2021. Aravind joins the company from Wipro Limited, where he served as Senior Vice President and CFO – iDEAS Global Business Line.

“Aravind is a highly experienced technology industry CFO and an incredibly capable global leader who will be a great partner to me and a perfect fit for Tanla. Aravind is the right person to join me and our leadership team to help continue Tanla’s remarkable momentum and drive our next phase of hyper growth, global expansion, and customer success. He will help set new benchmarks in process and policies for the organisation by bringing in the best global practices. He will be a strong partner to the leadership team as we continue to drive growth, both organically and inorganically,” said Uday Reddy, Chairman & CEO of Tanla Platforms Limited.

Aravind’s handling of finance and related functions is extensive and rich. He joins Tanla with nearly two decades’ financial experience, all at Wipro Limited, a leading global information technology company listed in India and on NYSE with a market cap of over US$30 Billion. He has handled pivotal roles across business finance, treasury, investor relations, financial planning and analysis and audit. He brings in considerable experience in areas around client contract negotiation including innovative deal structuring, driving levers for superior operating margin, forecasting and planning, M&A business case preparation and integration, driving better cash flows, setting up strong processes and compliance, investor relations and talent management.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the board of Tanla Platforms Ltd., for the trust placed in me and for giving me this opportunity. I am excited to join Uday and the Tanla leadership team in taking forward the culture of innovation that Tanla stands for. Its investments and phenomenal growth in the platforms business is what makes Tanla amongst the global leaders in the CPaaS ecosystem. As Tanla stands poised for the next phase of accelerated growth and global expansion, I am excited to support the business in this phase and be a partner in driving customer success and delivering value for all stakeholders.” said Aravind.

The Board of Tanla would like to thank our current CFO GK Srinivas for his invaluable contribution to Tanla for 13 years. He will be retiring in August 2021 enabling a smooth transition to the new CFO.


About Tanla:

Tanla Platforms Limited transforms the way the world collaborates and communicates through innovative CPaaS solutions. Founded in 1999, it was the first company to develop and deploy A2P SMSC in India. Today, as one of the world’s largest CPaaS players, Tanla processes more than 800 billion interactions annually and about 70% of India’s A2P SMS traffic is processed through its distributed ledger platform- Trubloq, making it the world’s largest Blockchain use case. Tanla touches over a billion lives carrying mission critical messages meeting the needs of the world’s largest enterprises. Tanla Platforms Limited is headquartered in Hyderabad, India and is expanding its presence globally.

US-based Twilio Acquires India's CPaaS Firm ValueFirst

American cloud communications platform as a service (CPaaS) firm Twilio has announced that it has acquired ValueFirst, one of India's leading CPaaS player, for an undisclosed sum.

ValueFirst connects businesses with consumers over telecom (SMS and voice) and Internet (chatbots, email and over-the-top) channels. Last fiscal year, ValueFirst processed over 42 billion SMS messages and was one of India's largest messaging aggregators and CPaaS - Communications Platform as a Service - players.

India's ValueFirst is Twilio's 8th acquisition,. Last year, the San-Francisco based firm acquired two companies -- Electric Imp, an Internet of Things platform company, and Segment, a technology startup that lets organizations pull customer data from one app into another, by way of APIs.

Twilio aims to benefit from ValueFirst's customers, market know-how and product offerings, to further scale their operations.

India is an important market for Twilio and their customers. The country is experiencing significant growth and presents a number of opportunities in the areas of messaging, conversational Artificial Intelligence, and marketing technology.

"Together, we are excited to accelerate our position in an important market and turbocharge our combined success," said Doug Garland, Senior Vice President of Strategic Business Development for Twilio.

CPaaS Platform CometChat Raises $1.6 Mn from US, Indian VCs

• US-based Range VC, Silicon Badia and India-based iSeed Ventures have invested in the Company
  
• Funds raised will be used for scaling up the US and India Sales and Marketing teams as well as shoring up product development
  
• CometChat enables businesses to integrate voice, video and text chat experiences in their mobile apps, webapps and websites.

Mumbai/Denver based CometChat, a CpaaS startup, has raised $1.6 million in a Seed round from Colorado based Range Ventures, NY-based Silicon Badia and India based iSeed Ventures. 

CometChat, which was incorporated in the US in 2019, by Anuj Garg and Anant Garg, works with top global enterprises by providing plug n play communication products to improve brands’ reach. CometChat, a product tech company, designs critical functions like chat, video and live event capabilities within websites and apps to help enterprises who are looking to boost user engagement accelerate their go to market time. Their product and solutions helps enterprises save hundreds of developer hours and the associated costs. 

Anuj Garg, Co-founder & CEO, CometChat, says, “CometChat has been working in the space of designing effective chat and video solutions for our customers. Today, we have built a strong base in the US and India and with backing of well known VCs both in the US and India, we believe our growth rate will accelerate and help us hit the next set of milestones quicker than before.” 

The company chose to remain bootstrapped until last year when they became the first and only Indian startup to be selected for Techstars Boulder Accelerator Program and received funding as part of the program. The funds raised in the Seed round will be used to scale up sales and marketing functions in the US and India. 

This capital will help CometChat, a B2D (business to developer) company, fuel growth by entering new markets with their Developer-First marketing approach and make significant investments towards product development. 

Utsav Somani, Founder, iSeed Ventures, says, “I first came across CometChat when a customer of theirs posted a great review about them. Then from the minute I saw their meteoric rise in metrics to Anuj and Anant’s vision on how text, voice and video will play a vital part in bringing intimacy to experiences online, I was excited to invest fairly quickly.”

About CometChat

CometChat, a global leader in Communication-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS), provides thousands of customers with a communication platform for their websites, web apps, mobile apps and IoT.  Its extensible platform seamlessly enables developers to add voice, video, text chat along with a host of other features like bots, moderation, encryption. Used by over 50,000 customers worldwide with billions of messages being exchanged per month, CometChat is loved by developers worldwide. CometChat has been founded by twin brothers Anant Garg and Anuj Garg. CometChat products enable beginner developers and business owners to add a full fledged messaging and communication platform within their website and apps in minutes using a plug and play interface. It also enables intermediate and expert developers to easily customize and scale their communication requirements using their SDK’s and APIs.