1Mby1M Deal Radar 2017: CleverTap, Mumbai, India

According to Gartner, the business intelligence and analytics software market is expected to reach $18.3 billion in 2017, an increase of 7.3% from 2016. By the end of 2020, the market is forecast to grow to $22.8 billion.

CleverTap is a behavioral analytics and user engagement platform provider. Its platform incorporates real-time segmentation, multi-channel messaging, A/B testing, and personalization in one unified solution.

CleverTap was founded in 2013 by Sunil Thomas and Anand Jain in Mumbai. Sunil is the former CTO of Network18 Media and Infospace. Anand had previously co-founded local reviews and recommendations platform burrp.com.

CleverTap was established with the goal of making mobile app engagement relevant, contextual, and personal. It wanted to give marketers and brands a deeper understanding of a mobile user’s behavior and enable them to acquire users and customers in a sustainable way. When CleverTap was founded, Google and companies like Localytics and Kahuna were already measuring engagement through data analytics. Currently other competitors include LeanPlum and Aptitude, which provide access to aggregated extracts and summaries of user data.

CleverTap’s platform consolidates analytics and engagement within a single toolset. It believes that such a combination better supports decision-making based on user information and activity as it enables brands to identify, target, engage, measure, and monetize users across mobile and the web.

It not only offers core metrics like retention, conversion, and revenue, but also provides developers the ability to analyze segmented users in a hyper targeted way to reach mobile users with personalized, contextual messaging.

Its main value proposition is that its platform gives marketers, developers, and product managers a complete picture of each user, enables them to engage based on that insight, and analyze the impact of those actions through relevant metrics.

Its top target markets are product developers and marketing departments in the mobile and E-commerce space. It mainly targets businesses that depend on data analytics to support their growth. For example, app developers can use its segments, cohorts, and funnels to better understand user behavior and derive valuable insights from it to improve customer engagement and retention.

It has over 4,000 customers worldwide. Its platform processes over 55 billion events per month and sends over 10 billion messages per month, and it has a reach of over 1 billion devices globally. Its customers include leading brands like McDonald’s, Sony, Star TV, DC Comics, DealsPlus, Curiosity, BookMyShow, and the Denver Broncos.

CleverTap operates on a freemium model. Its Starter level which offers complete analytics and campaign tracking is free. Pro level costs $350 to $1500 per month and Unlimited Analytics and Engagement plan costs $700-$3000 per month. The higher levels are suitable for small to mid-sized business. They offer unlimited customer campaigns and behavioral segments, live onboarding, data insights, priority email support. The Enterprise plam includes all these as well as a dedicated campaign manager at an all-inclusive predictable pricing.

CleverTap is profitable and its revenue is over $2.5 million, but it does not disclose details of the financials. It has raised a total $9.6 million in two rounds. In 2014, it received an initial seed funding of $1.6 million from Accel Partners, which it used to build the product and technology foundation. In 2015, it raised Series A funding of $8M from Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, and primarily used the funds for launching in the US and building out the global team. It maintains offices in Mumbai and the San Francisco Bay Area.

CleverTap has no immediate plans for another round. Its sole focus right now is to build a cutting edge behavioral analytics platform, and is currently not thinking about exit strategies.

This segment is a part in the series : 1Mby1M Deal Radar 2017