(Reuters) – Communication platform MessageBird said on Thursday it raised $200 million, valuing the company at $3 billion, in a funding round led by venture capital firm Spark Capital.
Investor interest in online business tools, from financial to networking and communication technology, has grown during the coronavirus pandemic with a surge in e-commerce.
MessageBird offers a single business platform for voice, text messaging and different chat apps to communicate with consumers. Automation functions can route customers to agents who can use translation tools to communicate in different languages, said MessageBird founder and Chief Executive Robert Vis in an interview.
Spark Capital General Partner Will Reed said he expected companies to move toward using one communication platform and that the sector was ripe for consolidation. “Our take is there are going to be a lot of a businesses of up for grabs,” he said in an interview.
Vis said the funding will be used to expand MessageBird’s global team and for acquisitions.
(Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Richard Chang)
