
MessageBird raises $60M Series A - joeyvanommen
https://blog.messagebird.com/messagebird-raises-60m-series-a-funding-9c703f95c67e
======
sillysaurus3
I see a lot of "Congrats" type sentiments in this thread. Maybe I should just
say congrats too, but I can't help but wonder: Isn't it a terrible idea to
raise $60M as a series A?

That means you'll either need to be bought for ~$100M just to break even, or
IPO, which seems very rare nowadays.

Could anyone help me understand what the calculus looks like for these
decisions? It's a series A too, not even a series B or C. I get that the
founding team genuinely believes in the vision of the company, but you can
still believe in the vision without removing your ability to exit.

~~~
ig1
If you take any amount of VC money the expectation is that you're going for
>$1bn exit.

Also remember that the Series of the investment doesn't necessarily reflect
the stage of the company but rather the number of rounds of investment it's
had. In this case MessageBird expect to hit $100m of revenue this year.

~~~
austenallred
They’re probably within spitting distance of a $1B valuation. Probably 5-8x at
this point?

The fact that they’re there this quickly is absolutely mind boggling.

~~~
ealexhudson
They're saying they expect to generate $100M revenue this year. I think that
places them a bit further off the $1B _exit_ than 8x, although if they raised
further funding potentially that could be done at an amount that suggests a
$1B value.

I wouldn't want to be competing against AWS Pinpoint, and the problems Twilio
have suggests this is a technically difficult space. Seems like quite a big
bet from the VCs involved.

~~~
terravion
Revenue to market cap multiples in technology on the public market are often
in the 6x range even at slower growth rates than private companies. So if
they're doing $100M they could easily be worth over $1B now.

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skrebbel
Cool stuff, and as a Dutch chauvinist I like that a fellow Dutch startup does
well.

That said, I've looked at MessageBird a bunch of times but I still don't get
it. What makes them different from all the other SMS gateways out there? It's
the same product everywhere: you invoke some REST API, an SMS is sent to a
number and you get billed.

~~~
tlogan
Good question - but all these gateways have tendency to drop messages, report
weird errors, messages are sometimes delayed by hours, their MMS support if
quirky, etc.

I.e., if you ever worked with Twilio you will learn about "30008 Unknown
error" \- Twilio support tries but because "Carrier Network" problems these
problems cannot be fixed.

In short, reliable delivery of SMS messages internationally is still not
solved.

~~~
juliosab
Do they use any tools to monitor sms reception on real SIM cards?

~~~
robertvis
Yes - we run our own network of real sims for quality control that we only use
for ourselves.

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petetnt
Hi,

where (in the world) is your data stored physically? The FAQ only says that

> The MessageBird platform is build to be secure from the ground up, through
> all application layers. We have put in place best practices from several
> industry standards to help reduce and mitigate risks. MessageBird’s
> communication platform is hosted at secure data centers that comply with
> leading security policies and frameworks, including ISO 27001 and NEN 7510.

Similar question/issue has prevented us from using Twilio in the past.

~~~
sean_lynch
Curious where you need it stored. EU? Or anywhere outside US?

~~~
rikthevik
If someone could guarantee Canadian data residency for SMS & voice, I would be
a very happy person.

~~~
robertvis
drop me an email robert@ - depending on exact needs can prob help you.

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techlad84
For those asking what makes them different, this blog post by their European
investor Atomico may shed some light? Starts at paragraph 4
[http://news.atomico.com/our-investment-in-messagebird-a-
euro...](http://news.atomico.com/our-investment-in-messagebird-a-european-
deep-tech-wunderkind-enabling-truly-global-cloud-communications-for-the-first-
time/)

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earlybike
60M for a SMS gateway in 2017. Confused.

~~~
knodi
Ya, good luck getting that investment back.

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koolba
Actual title is: "MessageBird raises $60m Series A funding"

I've never heard of this company but looks like the same space as Twilio.
Given how entrenched something like this could be in the API stack of an
application, I can see the value in having a large war chest to drive
development and adoption. Kudos!

~~~
wastedhours
Be interesting to see where the tipping point for adoption would be for
companies (guessing if you're using plain SMS, the switching cost from Twilio
or Textburst etc... wouldn't be great). At what point does the cost become
painful for a small biz doing SMS, and if you can create a plan to grab those
before the next growth phase, could be a good strategy.

~~~
joeyvanommen
Definitely an interesting question, here are a couple of ways to look at it:

\- For companies doing a lot of messages or calls, pricing becomes a big issue
in terms of scaling. Better pricing means they can do more to achieve even
greater results, without too big of a restraint of financial overhead compared
to competitors.

\- For smaller companies doing smaller amounts of traffic, pricing isn't the
biggest issue, all though it does become one when scaling.

An alternative benefit, which is applied to all types of companies, is the
fact that MessageBird is better for security and quality: having more direct
connections and working closely with telco's makes it possible to have
complete end-to-end control over the traffic. This is crucial when choosing a
partner to do 2FA with or other types of sensitive, security related messaging
and calling, but also guarantees an overal better quality of service.

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gergderkson
We've been using MessageBird to send transactional SMS's for over a year now.
It was much cheaper than our previous provider and their support is first
class. Congrats to them.

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surfmike
First time I’ve learned about MessageBird— how do they compare to Twilio?

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base
I see Whatsapp support on their website but I find this very strange, Whatsapp
doesn't have an official API, only some hidden endpoints for their clients
that can be changed at any time. [https://www.messagebird.com/en/chat-
api](https://www.messagebird.com/en/chat-api)

~~~
ballenf
I'm not seeing any mention of WhatsApp on that page. I see WeChat, however,
along with Telegram, Line and [FB] Messenger.

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EGreg
How does this compare with Twilio on cost and deliverability?

~~~
jsjohnst
Beating Twilio on either point is setting a rather low bar for comparison.
Neither are Twilio’s strong suit, imho. Not saying Twilio is bad, but they are
certainly not cheap or rock solid reliable.

~~~
EGreg
Who would you recommend over them?

~~~
jsjohnst
Depends on needs. If great documentation and easy to use APIs are important,
then I’d recommend a different provider over one for price / reliability. Also
depends what world markets you are focused on too. One other major variance is
if you need MMS or short code support.

~~~
epicide
So which would you recommend for documentation and which would you recommend
for price?

~~~
jsjohnst
Documentation / tooling would probably be Twilio.

Provider based on price depends on how heavily you use US vs World, and if
it's SMS (and/or MMS needed) or Voice or both and what volume you are
operating at. For pure SMS with a balanced mix of domestic and international,
I would probably suggest AWS Pinpoint at this point. Their international rates
compared to Twilio are fantastic for all the locations I spot checked.

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dzink
These guys seem to be able to connect across video and messaging platforms. In
the age where everyone is trying to be WeChat and connect billions, the pipes
underneath that would be a downright bargain at $1B.

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veryluckyxyz
Can one of you please point me to their (previous is fine too) FORM-Ds? my
search on edgar comes up with nothing [https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-
edgar?company=message&own...](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-
edgar?company=message&owner=exclude&action=getcompany)

~~~
terravion
If this is their first funding as claimed, they wouldn't have to file a Form D
even if they were a US company which it doesn't seem that they are.

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init-as
Isn't this kind of something that might be phased out in the next few years.
I'd imagine there would be some kind of web tool doing authentication like
this at some point just because of how obsolete sms seems these days. Correct
me if I am wrong though.

~~~
stanleydrew
The products offered are not simply for SMS-based authentication. That is
merely one use-case out of many that you can build on a platform like
MessageBird or Twilio.

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dboreham
Wondering why the VCs are so keen on companies that seem to be re-doing
something that's been done many times (almost commodity in the case of this
company) and has essentially no proprietary technology and no network effect?

~~~
dirkdk
$100 million revenue per year will do that, I guess they do something better
than the competition
[https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/03/messagebird/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/03/messagebird/)

~~~
dboreham
Their market (sending SMS to consumers) is dying, replaced by app
notifications.

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nethsix
It may be but probably not that soon since there are a lot of countries not on
smartphones, some industries have multiple dominant players, and users may not
want to deal with an app from each player, e.g., car dealers, etc.

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tonydiv
Anyone have experience with their VoIP? Currently using Tokbox but been having
some troubles. We integrate it across web, iOS, and Android for a kid's learn-
to-code with live teachers product.

~~~
akoncius
yeah, I'm looking for similar VoIP product too

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jondishotsky
Congrats to Robert and team, great people

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pdog
What is MessageBird? Is it a Twitter thing?

~~~
tschellenbach
I was just discussing how good their landing page is, haha, clearly not good
enough!

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robertvis
lol - thanks :)

