User Engagement Platform CometChat Raises Rs 40 Cr in Venture Debt led by Utah based Zions Venture Fund

• CometChat enables top enterprises to integrate critical functions like chat, voice & video within websites and apps
• CometChat has recently integrated with Chat-GPT
• Funds raised to be used for scaling up its product offering, strengthen presence in Europe and expand strongly in the APAC region.
• CometChat so far has raised over 145 Cr and is backed by marquee investors like Signal Peak Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Range Ventures and Unbound Ventures
• CometChat’s engagement metrics has grown 3x in the last 12 months
• The startup has handled over 800 million connections and has been doubling revenues every year

User engagement platform CometChat has raised Rs 40 crore in a Venture Debt round led by Utah based Zions Venture Fund. Funds raised will be used for scaling up its product offerings, strengthening its presence in Europe and expanding data centres strongly in the APAC region. This will also further strengthen CometChat's position as the startup continues to support its enterprise customers with mission critical real time engagement infrastructure.

(L-R) – Anuj Garg and Anant Garg

CometChat has raised Rs over 145 crore till date and is backed by marquee investors including Signal Peak Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Range Ventures and Unbound Ventures.

CometChat with its headquarters in Denver and Mumbai was incorporated in the US in 2019 by twin brothers Anuj Garg and Anant Garg. The CpaaS startup works with top global enterprises by providing them a full-fledged messaging and communications platform within apps and websites to improve brand’s user engagement. It allows users to get real time engagement and have conversations via messaging, voice calling and HD video chat. The software provides user to user engagement for a growing customer base via robust offering and helps enterprises save hundreds of developer hours and the associated costs that companies have to otherwise spend in building this tech from the scratch.

Anuj Garg, Co-founder CEO, CometChat, says, “We are a revenue focused business continuously growing in large international markets. Thus, our business fundamentals and strong balance sheet has enabled us to raise this round as we are in a comfortable position to service the debt. The aim is to raise capital for an extended runway of 5 years as we put our growth plans in the fast lane.”

In the last 12 months, CometChat's customer base has grown by 3X and product usage by 300%. The Company with its B2D (Business to developer) approach, has handled over 800 million connections so far. The Company has earned numerous awards including, ‘Established Product/ at the 30th Annual HYSEA Summit and “Best Estimated ROI” by G2.

Sam Clark, MD, Zions Venture Fund, says, “Zions is thrilled to be partnering with CometChat for this debt facility. We have been impressed by the team and what they have accomplished to date. Excited to be a part of the journey and support the Company through its phases of growth.”

In addition to fuelling growth by expanding in the new markets with its developer first approach CometChat holds a strong position in the North American region. It not only has robust offerings like SDKs and APIs, Open Sourced UI Kits and Widgets, the startup now has integrated with a large language model chatbot popularly known as ChatGPT.

CometChat is emerging as a trustworthy communication platform worldwide and is presently working with sectors like marketplaces, community apps, telehealth applications, ed-tech, any internal messaging or enterprise system. 

About CometChat:

Trusted by over 50,000 developers worldwide, CometChat’s communication platform provides easy to use text chat, voice and video functionality for websites and apps across all industries. Their dedicated team has obsessed over building a scalable, secure and easy to use communication platform that delivers meaningful user to user engagement for a growing customer base via a robust offering of Chat APIs, SDKs, and Open Sourced UI Kits & Widgets. With headquarters located in Denver, Colorado, the global team is united by a shared mission to fuel our customer’s growth through meaningful user to user engagement.

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.

Mumbai-based CometChat Raises $120K, Selected for Techstars Boulder Accelerator Program

Mumbai-based CometChat, a CPaaS startup, announces its entry into Techstars Boulder core accelerator program. CometChat is the first Indian startup to be selected into 3 month long Techstars Boulder program.

As part of the program, Techstars will seed fund CometChat $1,20,000 and incubate the Company in its US location. Under the program, CometChat will have access to Techstars resources such as mentors, financial, legal and infra resources for life. This would include access to Techstars network of more than 10,000 entrepreneurs, 2,700 investors and 1200 alumni companies. At the end of 3-month program, selected companies in the program will be showcasing their progress and refined product to investors as part of demo day, which is likely to result in further growth stage funding and visibility.

Anuj Garg, Co-founder & CEO, CometChat, says, “This is a big milestone for us as we are the first Indian startup to be accepted into Techstars Boulder. We are very excited to leverage Techstars network and mentoring program; we will be able scale CometChat faster than expected. We will also be significantly expanding on our AI/ML & bots platform allowing our customers to include artificial intelligence in their communication layer with great ease”

Commenting on accepting CometChat into the Techstars Boulder program, Natty Zach, Managing Director, Techstars Boulder, says, “We are excited to work with CometChat in the next class of Techstars Boulder. This is the first company from India accepted into the boulder accelerator program. We hope the learnings about building great companies will flow in both directions.”

CometChat, which originally began as a licensed model nine years ago was launched as a pure play Subscription Service in 2018 by twin brothers Anuj Garg and Anant Garg, takes pride in the fact that they built the Company, generated revenues and expanded their team and portfolio, while being bootstrapped. The Company has also announced the launch of CometChat Pro, an SDK for expert developers, who are looking to build bespoke in app/web chat solutions in their final offering to the end user. The product is priced starting at $499/month. Also announcing the launch of CometChat Go, a ready to use plug and play solution for beginner developers and business owners looking to add a communication layer in their product

As the decision making power has gradually shifted from CIOs of companies to developers there is booming market of B2D (Business to Developer) startups emerging looking to empower developers and catch a pie of the growing developer mind space. Companies such as Stripe, Github, Auth0, PagerDuty & New Relic are stellar companies built solely on a developer focused product.

Anant Garg, Founder & CTO, CometChat, says, “We believe we are at the cusp of a big milestone in the journey of CometChat. While on one hand, Techstars program will help us enter the US market and establish corporate channels and expand our presence in a big way, on the other hand, rolling CometChat Pro, will ensure we are ready for highly evolved and quality obsessed customers, which are developers in this case. For us our mission is clear, if you need chat in your app, think CometChat”

CometChat, a B2D (business to developer) company, has plans to expand aggressively in the US and EU markets with their Developer-First marketing approach. To capture a share of the mind space of developers as well as for key talent acquisition they will be raising funds in 2019 – transitioning from their bootstrap roots to a growth focused enterprise.

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. 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 Go enables beginner developers and business owners to add a full fledged messaging and communication platform within their website and apps in seconds using a plug and play interface. CometChat Pro enables intermediate and expert developers to easily customize and scale their communication requirements using their SDK’s and APIs.