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Tag: CleverTap

  • CleverTap partners with premium streaming service OSN+

    CleverTap partners with premium streaming service OSN+

    Mumbai: CleverTap, the all-in-one engagement platform, announced its partnership with the region’s leading premium streaming service, OSN+. This strategic alliance will enable OSN+ to deliver hyper-personalised communication across all touchpoints to its customers by leveraging CleverTap’s all-in-one platform.

    OSN+ director of engagement and retention marketing Ishan Singh said, “We believe in a customer-first approach and are confident that with CleverTap, we will be able to enhance our overall user experience. CleverTap’s remarkable expertise within the OTT space means they are well-versed with the unique challenges and opportunities the industry presents. Content is king, and personalisation is the key to capturing and retaining audiences. Leveraging CleverTap’s patented technology and comprehensive all-in-one solution, we will be able to provide tailored, hyper-personalised content and unmatched value to our customers.”

    “We are thrilled about partnering with OSN+, who have always been at the forefront of digital technological innovation – a principle that strongly resonates with our commitment to always push the boundaries of MarTech. Through our granular AI-powered segmentation, OSN+ will be able to not only group users into compact cohorts but also understand the best time and channel to engage with them, and the nature of content they prefer. This will streamline their marketing efforts and help direct attention to the high-value customers.” said CleverTap regional sales director for META region Samer Saad. “With over 120 customers in the META region, we continue to focus on scaling our local presence and are committed to helping brands maximise customer lifetime value.”

     

  • CleverTap raises $105 mn in series D funding round led by CDPQ

    CleverTap raises $105 mn in series D funding round led by CDPQ

    Mumbai: Global B2B SaaS platform, CleverTap has signed definitive agreements to raise $105 million in a series D funding round led by CDPQ, a global investment group that has committed $75 million, with participation from IIFL AMC’s tech fund, along with existing investors Tiger Global and Sequoia India.

    The funds will be used to support CleverTap’s global expansion and enhance the development of its world-class solutions and technology.

    CleverTap’s customer engagement and retention SaaS platform leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence to offer a comprehensive user engagement suite that enables brands to build valuable, long-term relationships with their customers.

    CleverTap’s subscription-based solution has been adopted by a loyal customer base of twelve hampered brands in a hundred countries, representing ten thousand apps across industries including fintech, ecommerce, subscription, on demand, and streaming media.

    Commenting on the collection, CleverTap co-founder and executive chairman Sunil Thomas said, “Our vision has been to reshape the way businesses engage with their consumers and bring technology to MarTech. The addition of long-term investors CDPQ and IIFL AMC Tech fund to CleverTap’s existing backers, Sequoia India, Accel, Tiger Global, and Recruit Holdings, is a great endorsement of the successful business we have built, the innovation we bring to the market, and the growth potential CleverTap holds.”

    “The fresh funds will help fuel our plans to further strengthen our presence in key geographies and expand our teams. The last few months have been quite exciting for us with the Leanplum acquisition and the unveiling of TesseractDB. And now, with the new institutional investors coming on board, we have all that we need to grow at a faster rate while consolidating our position as the global leader in the retention space,” he added.

    Adding to it, CDPQ executive vice president and head of private equity Martin Laguerre commented, “CleverTap has established itself as a partner of choice for its clients by helping them generate significant incremental revenue. Its subscription-based platform offers a single and reliable source of information that allows brands to maximise the lifetime value of their existing customers by engaging them in a highly personalised way.”

    He added, “As consumer brands are increasingly focused on customer retention and prioritise tools offering a tangible return on investment, we believe CleverTap is well positioned to maintain its global growth trajectory and help more businesses enhance their customer experience.”

  • CleverTap acquires San Francisco-based Leanplum

    CleverTap acquires San Francisco-based Leanplum

    Mumbai: CleverTap has completely acquired San Francisco-based Leanplum, a leading multi-channel customer engagement platform. The acquisition, originally announced on 19 May, was closed in a record time of three weeks. It becomes revenue accretive for CleverTap from 1 June 2022.

    With this acquisition, CleverTap has strengthened its footprint in the US and Europe. CleverTap will combine the product stack of both organizations and extend its world-class solutions & technology to all its customers and prospects worldwide.

    Leanplum co-founder Momchil Kyurkchiev has joined CleverTap’s leadership team as chief strategy officer. With the completion of the acquisition, CleverTap also welcomes marquee investors Norwest Partners, Shasta Ventures, Canaan, and Kleiner Perkins as its shareholders.

    “We are very excited to welcome Momchil and all Leanplum employees to the CleverTap family and expect full integration of the two companies, including an integrated product in the market to get completed over the next three to four quarters,” said CleverTap co-founder and executive chairman Sunil Thomas.

    “With this acquisition customers will now have a wide variety of product features and options to choose from the best of both product line-ups (A/B testing, segmentation, campaigns, journeys etc.) At the same time, the acquisition provides a much bigger growth, exposure and learning opportunities for employees and collectively we will now become a dominant force with a large global footprint,” he added.

    “As we expand globally, we are looking to retain as well as grow 100 percent of the Leanplum customers by bringing all combined capability on one platform in due course. We also plan to increase our headcount in the US and Europe. Together, we aspire to be recognized as a SaaS talent powerhouse built on a strong people-first culture driven by values and equality,” added Sunil.

    CleverTap chief strategy officer Momchil Kyurkchiev commented, “The Martech landscape the world over is evolving at an exponential rate and hyper-personalized digital engagement at scale is the need of the hour. I am sure that together, Leanplum and CleverTap will address this need and continue to drive innovation in this space. CleverTap and Leanplum individually have had a robust presence in terms of geographical reach, industries, and categories. Collectively we will now become a dominant force with a large global footprint.”

  • CleverTap acquires San Francisco based company Leanplum

    CleverTap acquires San Francisco based company Leanplum

    Mumbai: The retention cloud leader, CleverTap on Thursday has announced that it has signed definitive agreements to fully acquire San Francisco based Leanplum, a leading multi-channel customer engagement platform, for an undisclosed amount.

    This acquisition will make CleverTap a truly global company with development centers and customer-facing and success teams across North America, Europe, Latin America, India, South East Asia and the Middle East. Combining the product stack of the two organizations, this acquisition will enhance CleverTap’s capabilities and take its total customer base to over 1200 in more than 100 countries around the world. The deal is expected to close in Q2 of 2022.

    Together CleverTap and Leanplum will work with digital brands to help increase their users’ engagement, retention and lifetime value by making every user experience hyper-personalized, relevant and contextual at scale in real-time.  

    CleverTap and Leanplum will now bring real-time hyper-personalization, A/B testing and increased scalability to its omnichannel engagement, analytics and segmentation product lines. As a result, growth and marketing teams globally will now be able to utilize the only end-to-end user engagement and retention cloud platform, enabling them to break down user communication silos and increase the overall lifetime value of each user.

    CleverTap co-founder and executive chairman Sunil Thomas, “We are seeing a seismic shift in the marketing technology landscape. Users today demand to be treated as individuals, and this has forced brands to change how they engage with them. CleverTap and Leanplum have both purposely built for a mobile-centric omnichannel world.”

    The acquisition, he says, combines platforms and teams to deliver the best behaviour analytics, segmentation, and engagement tools that will enable digital brands to build valuable, long-term relationships with their users. “Our combined strength will be a game-changing force for user engagement, retention and monetization, creating tremendous value for our customers. I am very excited to welcome Leanplum to the CleverTap family.”

    “When we started Leanplum, our vision was to meet customers’ real-time needs at the cutting edge of technology,” said Leanplum’s Co-founder and chief product officer Momchil Kyurkchiev. “We have succeeded in that, but as the market has matured, to fully meet the increasing demands put on brands today, we needed to bring in the best analytics, segmentation, and engagement tools, to help our customers build valuable, long-term relationships with their customers. This is why joining forces with CleverTap makes the most sense, and I am excited about the combined capabilities we will now bring to Leanplum customers worldwide.”

    “I am looking forward to the journey with Leanplum. This coming together with Leanplum marks a monumental moment across the marketing technology landscape,” said CleverTap Chief Executive Officer Sidharth Malik. “This bridges the gap created by multiple martech tools and customer data platforms and will meet the growing needs of user-obsessed digital brands in a much more efficient way. Our ‘better together’ vision is about integrating our cumulative strengths around people, process and technology to cement our position as the global leader in the user engagement and retention space.”

    “Joining forces allows us to bring advanced product and technology capabilities as brands strive to do live segmentation, anticipate user intentions and actions, automate and deploy real-time campaigns for the highest possible conversions, all from one single dashboard,” he added.

  • Clevertap brings in Honey Bajaj as SVP and global chief of consumer experience

    Clevertap brings in Honey Bajaj as SVP and global chief of consumer experience

    Mumbai: Clevertap has brought Honey Bajaj on board as senior vice president (SVP) and global chief of consumer experience. Bajaj is a design strategist, an innovation leader and a social entrepreneur with extensive work in India and the US.

    Before joining Clevertap, Honey built an innovation pipeline for several Fortune 500 companies, including Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures, Disney, Microsoft Research, MIT Media Lab and Tata Group. At Tata Group, she developed detailed market segmentation frameworks based on purchase behaviour to orchestrate product launches and go-to-market strategies.

    She is also a dual degree holder with a master’s degree in engineering and management and a master’s in sustainability studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently pursuing her PhD in design and innovation methodologies in the digital world.

    “As we scale Clevertap into a global category creator for ‘retention cloud,’ we realise that our customers are eager to co-create experiences that will fuel growth and the future of their own digital businesses,” Clevertap chief growth officer Vikrant Chowdhary. “For this reason, we are expanding our leadership team with a new appointment that benefits the most important stakeholder: our customers’ customers.”

    He further added, “From fintech to ecommerce, and from on-demand super apps to media and streaming services, companies need the inspiration and tangible examples of the ‘art of possible’ to unleash human-centered design thinking, unlock new perspectives and drive powerful momentum and positive results for all stakeholders. “This outcome is inextricably linked with our customers’ abilities to realise and hyper-personalise omnichannel journeys for their customers.”

    “I have always focused on designing for impact and inventing for scale by contextualising tech for the consumers,” said Honey Bajaj. “The truth is, no matter what we think we’re doing, we are all in the customer-experience business. Before you can accomplish it, you need to envision it. The digital behaviour and expectations of customers is evolving faster than most industries are able to deliver. I am looking forward to my journey with Clevertap to embed human-centered principles and design thinking into a series of initiatives and programs,”

    She added, “These efforts will allow digital-first companies to co-create and simulate digital journeys that will fuel growth through superior customer experience and will enable Clevertap’s customers to realise their consumer journeys in a more seamless and contextual manner as the lines of the digital and omnichannel world are no longer separated.”

  • CAMM Summit 2022: ‘Retention is relevant through the customer journey’

    CAMM Summit 2022: ‘Retention is relevant through the customer journey’

    Mumbai: Retention is no longer just about the last phase of the customer journey anymore. In a traditional organisation such as a bank, retention would only come into question when the customer would close their account. But in the digital natvive business model, where the customer goes through five phases starting from acquisition followed by activation, retention, referral and revenue, retention is relevant through the latter four phases.  At the Content-Tech, Ad-Tech, Mar-Tech and More (CAMM) Summit and Exhibition 2022 organised by IndianTelevision.com co-powered by PubMatic and industry partner Adjust, experts from agency, SaaS startup, marketing deep dived into a conversation on ‘Decoding User Experience and Retention.’

    The session was led by Kinnect senior vice president marketing science and CX Bharatesh Salian who was joined by Zenith senior vice president Jasmine Sachdeva, Fast&Up vice president marketing Venkat Erpina and CleverTap senior vice president marketing Jayant Kshirsagar.

    The last two years of the pandemic have changed the conversation around user experience and retention. Marketers’ decisions are more guided by data as customers. “Earlier, when the consumer was on digital or offline, we were guessing what they wanted,” said Zenith’s Jasmine Sachdeva. “We leveraged static data such as the Indian Readership Survey to understand who the customer is and where the probability is of finding them. Today, tools like AI and machine learning are supporting us to be able to predict customers’ future behaviour and connect with them. We’ve moved from guessing to predictive customer journeys.”

    Fast&Up’s Venkat Erpina spoke about using purchase data to better understand the customer’s preferences. “Two years back, we entered the sports nutrition category with our product. If you have a strong retail customer base then it is easier to leverage them for future growth. So, we focused on customer satisfaction in terms of delivery time, packaging communication in various instances of product delivery and product quality. Then we segmented our customers into various cohorts. If a customer falls into a relevant cohort for a new product then we reach out to them and acquire new consumers,” he said.

    The panellist suggested that there is a limit to how much you can nudge a customer towards a new product. The idea is to give customers value over selling them more products to drive retention. SaaS startups such as Clevertap are leveraging first party data to help brands create a seamless customer experience and purchase journey.

    “All our customers are B2C companies with a digital native business model,” said Clevertap’s Jayant Kshirsagar. “Almost all of them have created a unique experience for their customers. Now they are focusing on creating value through experience.”

    “They are refraining from spamming the customer instead they are personalising. Clevertap has created a platform where we use data, analytics and recommendations. Retention is important in terms of safeguarding the consumer base as every five per cent increase in retention helps operating margins by 40-70 per cent. The cost of acquiring a customer is far higher than the cost of retaining a customer. Offering experience plus value using technology is the key to retaining customers,” he added.

  • Women account for 28% of the country’s total app consumption, rural at 16.4%: Study

    Women account for 28% of the country’s total app consumption, rural at 16.4%: Study

    Mumbai: Indian women account for 28 per cent of the country’s total app consumption, with rural users accounting for 16.4 per cent. Together they drive over 70 per cent of purchasing decisions. Their purchasing power is reflected in key categories of app usage including social media apps, which increasingly convert sales, and e-commerce, according to a study from retention cloud platform CleverTap shared on Wednesday.

    Analysing the usage of over 300 different mobile apps with an average monthly user base of more than four million, the new study revealed opportunities in India’s mobile app market, led by women and rural regions.

    Women have major purchasing power, led by e-commerce

    Women in India drive over 70 per cent of purchasing decisions, with their purchasing power reflected in key categories of app usage including social media apps, which increasingly convert sales, and e-commerce.

    Based on the findings, the study suggests providers of ed-tech, social media, and fintech apps, in particular, consider marketing their apps to women. Women currently account for 37 per cent, 32.5 per cent and 31 per cent of usage, respectively, and are major consumers of products and services in these sectors.

    Indian women outpace men in E-commerce app usage, accounting for 54 per cent of all usage. Global e-commerce brands would do well to create highly personalised and relevant commerce experiences for Indian women in order to drive revenue growth and cement customer loyalty.

    Indian men account for a significant share of app interaction across several key verticals, including gaming (94 per cent), travel and transportation (84 per cent), on-demand services (78 per cent) and media and entertainment (77 per cent). Overall, men account for 72 per cent of mobile usage.

    Rural India – a massive opportunity

    Rural India is an underserved market on the cusp of seismic change. While app usage is currently 16.4 per cent, the split across verticals, CleverTap data shows consumers across cities and areas outside metropolitan centres gravitate to apps that can help them improve their education and quality of life.

    Edutech (19.2 per cent), media and entertainment (17.7 per cent) and fintech (17 per cent) stand out as verticals that attract a disproportionately large number of rural users.

    Adoption rates for health and fitness (13.2 per cent) are at the low end of the scale, but personalised strategies such as goal setting and reminder functionality can increase these numbers.

    Among urban users, adoption rates for health and fitness, e-commerce, and travel and transportation are nearing saturation levels (85 per cent and above). This dynamic underlines the importance of shifting focus to growth opportunities emerging in rural areas, where competition is lower, and returns are higher.

    User retention remains a challenge

    CleverTap analysis also confirms the pivotal importance of focusing on user retention. Uninstall rates are a challenge across all app categories, negating costly user acquisition (UA) campaigns and threatening companies’ potential growth. Uninstall rates are highest in the gaming (44 per cent) and social engagement (46 per cent) sectors.

    By contrast, sectors, where users perceive a high degree of value and convenience, have the lowest uninstall rates: On-demand services (21 per cent) and health and fitness (25 per cent). While these areas are better at retaining users, losing nearly a quarter of a subscriber base is still alarming. Data-driven offers, loyalty programs, and hyper-personalised marketing and messaging are just some of the ways brands and businesses can stem the attrition of these apps.

    “Global events have radically changed consumer behaviour, particularly among women, who now rely on apps as the go-to channel for all aspects of their lives,” said CleverTap global CEO Sidharth Malik. “Similarly, rural users have come to depend on apps to make transactions or continue their education, and now view apps as a means to improve their lives. Understanding the striking and significant differences among user segments and preferences is the critical first step for companies to connect, convert and ultimately grow retention and lifetime value.”

    Methodology

    A mobile-savvy country where apps drive commerce, communications, education and social interactions, India was the second-largest global market in terms of app downloads in 2021, according to a report by Data.ai. The CleverTap study demonstrates that mobile-first brands and businesses have an opportunity to reach underserved demographics in the world’s second-most populous nation and fastest-growing major economy.

    To understand mobile usage behaviour and identify trends in in-app consumption across India, the CleverTap data science team analysed over 300 mobile apps across different verticals, with an average monthly user base of more than 4 million. The usage behaviour was broken down by location (urban/rural); by gender across verticals (fintech, ed-tech, media and entertainment, health and fitness, travel and transportation, e-commerce, social engagement); by responses to engagement campaigns across different channels and verticals; and uninstall rates across verticals. More than 782 billion push notifications, 52 billion emails, and 10 billion in-app notifications were analysed for this study.

  • CleverTap onboards Jayant Kshirsagar as SVP of marketing

    CleverTap onboards Jayant Kshirsagar as SVP of marketing

    Mumbai: CleverTap, the user engagement and retention cloud, has announced that Jayant Kshirsagar joined its leadership team in the role of senior vice president of marketing. He will lead the company’s marketing initiatives as it expands into new markets across the globe.

    Kshirsagar is a momentum player, with a long track record of launching strategic marketing initiatives that have measurable impacts on business outcomes. His keen understanding of the customers he has served and the challenges they face allows him to envision paths for growth, and to articulate solutions to the market.

    “Consumers today show a clear preference for mobile-first consumption,” said Kshirsagar. “It is how they research products, shop and manage every aspect of their daily lives. Consequently, every brand must become mobile-first if they want to remain relevant to the consumer. What’s more, brands face unprecedented pressure to increase user retention, engagement and lifetime value. I look forward to helping CleverTap plan and execute holistic strategies that drive customer connection and grow transactions through valuable and contextual marketing and communications.”

    Kshirsagar brings over 25 years of leadership experience at multinational companies, including SAP, Intuit, Wipro, AT&T (Idea Cellular) and, most recently, at the high-growth startup MarketsandMarkets, the company behind the world’s first market intelligence cloud.

    “We are delighted to have Jayant join our leadership team and direct the marketing function towards building a robust growth engine for CleverTap,” said chief growth officer Vikrant Chowdhary. “His vast expertise in building communities at scale and increasing market consideration will be pivotal to our growth plans globally.”

  • CleverTap appoints Sidharth Malik as global CEO

    CleverTap appoints Sidharth Malik as global CEO

    Mumbai: User engagement and retention cloud CleverTap has expanded its core leadership with the appointment of Sidharth Malik as global CEO. The announcement comes as CleverTap accelerates its international growth and builds new capabilities to help digital consumer brands increase its customer retention and foster lifetime value. 

    Malik comes with a track record of building and leading dynamic organisations in competitive markets. Formerly the chief revenue officer at Freshworks, a SaaS provider of customer experience solutions, he was instrumental in scaling its business from a single product to a multi-product platform with a global footprint.

    Malik’s appointment marks a new chapter in CleverTap’s journey. Under the leadership of co-founder and founding CEO Sunil Thomas, the company has penetrated new markets and achieved $45 million in annual recurring revenue in less than six years of monetisation, with a 235 per cent compounded average growth rate. 

    “Sidharth’s passion, insights and leadership skills, coupled with his experience in helping take a world-class SaaS startup from India to the world, make him the right leader at the right time for CleverTap. His appointment significantly strengthens CleverTap’s core foundation and leadership team, preparing the company to scale globally and chart to an IPO,” said Thomas. 

    To further realise the company’s strategic vision, Thomas will assume the role of executive chairman and focus on scaling innovation and strategic direction for CleverTap, while Malik will help provide leadership for organisation-building and day-to-day business execution, said the statement.

    CleverTap chief growth officer Vikrant Chowdhary stated, “It’s so heartening to have Sidharth come on board as CEO to partner with me as we scale the business for faster growth, while Sunil focuses on innovation and strategic initiatives with a founder’s mindset. We are extremely confident in our ability to execute our growth charter and expand global leadership in our category.”

    Uniquely positioning itself as a full-stack retention cloud, CleverTap has introduced an entirely new product category and expanded its capabilities. Earlier this month, the company further cemented its position with the acquisition of Patch, a technology designed to provide seamless, contextual and secure communications between companies and consumers.

  • CleverTap acquires Patch to empower in-app calling for mobile-first businesses

    CleverTap acquires Patch to empower in-app calling for mobile-first businesses

    Mumbai: User engagement and retention cloud CleverTap has completed the acquisition of Patch, a technology that enables businesses to brand and embed communication channels — including in-app voice, chat, and push notifications — directly into consumer apps. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

    Patch is designed to provide seamless, contextual, and secure communications between companies and consumers. Its in-app calling makes two-way communication privacy-compliant as there is no need to disclose caller or receiver telephone numbers or personal data.

    “The acquisition is the first in CleverTap’s eight-year history and marks an important milestone in its ongoing innovation journey of expanding its capabilities. It will elevate the end-customer experience and empower brands and businesses globally to communicate with millions of their customers seamlessly,” stated CleverTap’s chief growth officer Vikrant Chowdhary.

    “Patch acquisition is strategic and significant because it positions CleverTap as the first and only marketing and retention platform to offer in-app telephony capabilities,” he added.

    Currently, all companies that offer apps are forced to use unverified phone numbers to communicate with their customers and update them on urgent information such as delivery status or recent credit card charges. Predictably, these phone calls, which are delivered outside of the app experience, neither carry transactional context nor recognisable phone numbers or caller ID and often fuel customer anxiety and mistrust. Often dismissed as spam by consumers, the calls regularly go unanswered.

    The outcome is a poor customer experience for the consumer and a loss of revenue for brands and businesses that are unable to connect with them at critical stages in the journey.  “For consumers, knowing who is calling and understanding the context from within the app increases trust and drives digital interactions and transactions,” noted Chowdhary. “As customers engage more frequently or deeply, brands and businesses also benefit because they reduce friction and increase the opportunities to generate revenues.”

    It’s also the first time these capabilities are being offered to mobile-first brands and businesses across the globe. “Having in-app voice capabilities as a part of the CleverTap Retention Cloud is a game-changer for digital brands. It enables a trusted, two-way conversation between companies and their customers with context, security, and speedy resolution or assistance,” said CleverTap co-founder and chief product officer Anand Jain. 

    Commenting on the benefits to stakeholders, Jain added, “This is a new and critical addition to the engagement toolkit of email, push notifications, SMS, and WhatsApp that growth marketers and businesses must harness to improve communications and drive results. It’s all about evolving the in-app experience to increase customer satisfaction, reduce friction, and ultimately help our customers grow customer retention and LTV.”