Cloud scheduling company, Calendly which is led by Nigerian-born entrepreneur, Tope Awotona has just raised a staggering $350 million in a new funding round, sending the company’s valuation to $3 billion.

The new funding would provide liquidity for early shareholders and employees and also help the company with continued product development.

Calendly’s latest funding round was led by OpenView Venture Partners and included Iconiq Capital. According to the Atlanta Business Journal, the round was raised based on a valuation of $3 billion of the company.

The company which was founded in 2013 provides cloud-based scheduling service which aims to simplify how people connect with each other in terms of scheduled meetings. It offers its services on a freemium model – providing free access, but additional benefits are paid for. Calendly makes it easy for people to indicate their availability on a calendar so that people seeking to have meetings can pick a time slot and create a schedule with the needed details.

The Calendly platform integrates with Google, Outlook, Office 365 and iCloud calendar, this way, issues of double bookings are avoided, and it comes with automated task support which can be linked into Salesforce, GoToMeeting, Zapier and other services. The scheduling offers support for buffer times between meetings, secret event types and flexible meeting types and also adjusts for time zones.

In tandem with the growth trajectory witnessed by other cloud-based services, Calendly has seen rapid growth in its business during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2020 financial year, the company was able to double its revenue to $70 million, with about 10 million users across the globe. Aside individual clientele, Calendly commands some heavyweight customers like Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Twilio Inc.

The company’s CEO, Tope Awotona says that, “our profitable, unique, product-led growth model has led to Calendly becoming the most used, most integrated, most loved scheduling platforms for individuals and large enterprises alike.”

Large funding rounds for tech companies even though not an everyday occurrence, are not strange. What makes Calendly’s case a bit more peculiar is that fact that prior to this new funding, it had only raised about $550,000 over two rounds between 2014 and 2017, as such, the huge funding leap makes it news-worthy.

The earlier funding rounds were actually seed and early stage venture capital rounds, which includes money put into the company by the founder, Awotona himself. Early investors in Calendly are Greenspring Associates, Atlanta Ventures and IncWell.

Speaking on the new funding inflow, Tope Awotona says that, “while we considered outside investment an unnecessary distraction, we made the decision to partner with OpenView and Iconiq because of their insight and extended network within the tech industry.”

Source; https://africaatrandom.com/nigerian-led-calendly-raises-350m-in-new-funding-round/

RandomAfrican1:


Cloud scheduling company, Calendly which is led by Nigerian-born entrepreneur, Tope Awotona has just raised a staggering $350 million in a new funding round, sending the company’s valuation to $3 billion.

The new funding would provide liquidity for early shareholders and employees and also help the company with continued product development.

Calendly’s latest funding round was led by OpenView Venture Partners and included Iconiq Capital. According to the Atlanta Business Journal, the round was raised based on a valuation of $3 billion of the company.

The company which was founded in 2013 provides cloud-based scheduling service which aims to simplify how people connect with each other in terms of scheduled meetings. It offers its services on a freemium model – providing free access, but additional benefits are paid for. Calendly makes it easy for people to indicate their availability on a calendar so that people seeking to have meetings can pick a time slot and create a schedule with the needed details.

The Calendly platform integrates with Google, Outlook, Office 365 and iCloud calendar, this way, issues of double bookings are avoided, and it comes with automated task support which can be linked into Salesforce, GoToMeeting, Zapier and other services. The scheduling offers support for buffer times between meetings, secret event types and flexible meeting types and also adjusts for time zones.

In tandem with the growth trajectory witnessed by other cloud-based services, Calendly has seen rapid growth in its business during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2020 financial year, the company was able to double its revenue to $70 million, with about 10 million users across the globe. Aside individual clientele, Calendly commands some heavyweight customers like Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Twilio Inc.

The company’s CEO, Tope Awotona says that, “our profitable, unique, product-led growth model has led to Calendly becoming the most used, most integrated, most loved scheduling platforms for individuals and large enterprises alike.”

Large funding rounds for tech companies even though not an everyday occurrence, are not strange. What makes Calendly’s case a bit more peculiar is that fact that prior to this new funding, it had only raised about $550,000 over two rounds between 2014 and 2017, as such, the huge funding leap makes it news-worthy.

The earlier funding rounds were actually seed and early stage venture capital rounds, which includes money put into the company by the founder, Awotona himself. Early investors in Calendly are Greenspring Associates, Atlanta Ventures and IncWell.

Speaking on the new funding inflow, Tope Awotona says that, “while we considered outside investment an unnecessary distraction, we made the decision to partner with OpenView and Iconiq because of their insight and extended network within the tech industry.”

Source; https://africaatrandom.com/nigerian-led-calendly-raises-350m-in-new-funding-round/

the company was founded in 2013 and still waxing stronger

Yoruba Amaka.