Attentive Raises $70M Series C, Six Months After Raising $40M

New York-based Attentive seems to be growing quickly. The company announced today that it raised $70 million in Series C funding co-led by Sequoia and IVP, with participation from prior investors Eniac Ventures and NextView Ventures.

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Today’s deal brings the company’s total funding to $124 million, of which $110 million has been raised in the past six months. Attentive closed $40 million in a Sequoia-led Series B round, which was announced in August 2019.

But what does it do? Attentive makes and provides a mobile messaging platform to businesses to connect with new and existing customers through personalized text and multimedia messages.

The company’s platform also gives its customers the ability to send customized messages based on certain types of events, like a customer abandoning their online shopping cart or making their first purchase from a brand. The company’s tech also helps marketers compose and A/B test new campaigns, target specific customer segments and, importantly, measure the effectiveness of campaigns by quantifying the revenue they generate.

Attentive’s customers are mostly ecommerce companies like Coach, Urban Outfitters, Party City and CB2, among others. Attentive says it now has 750 companies using its platform and grew its client list 347 percent in the last year. The company says it serves clients in other industries too, like food and beverage, travel, and media and entertainment.

Brian Long, CEO of Attentive, said in a statement that “In a few years, brands will be expected to engage in real-time, two-way conversations with their customers via mobile messaging. You will see every business using personalized messages to communicate everything from marketing, transactions, and customer service—across the entire lifecycle. Our mission is to create the best-in-class solution for engaging with today’s mobile-first consumers.”

Long was a co-founder of TapCommerce, which sold to Twitter in 2014 for $100 million.

Attentive says it plans to use its new funding to continue expanding its footprint nationwide. In a statement, the company said it grew its engineering organization 160 percent since the close of its Series B roughly six months ago.

The company says it increased its total headcount 228 percent in 2019 and now has teams operating in Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit and Indianapolis, alongside its expanded headquarters in New York City.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias