Marsha Stevenson 
Unifonic, a Saudi customer engagement platform, has recently raised $125 million from SoftBank, BECO Capital and STV. With this round of funding, Unifonic is rapidly expanding its presence into new markets, strengthening its position as the leading provider of customer engagement solutions to businesses across the Middle East, North Africa, and the rest of the world.
This article will explore the markets for Unifonic’s products, services, and customers.
Saudi customer engagement platform Unifonic raises $125 million from SoftBank, others
Unifonic is a Saudi customer engagement platform founded in 2015 by the Saeed Group of Companies. It enables businesses to build, implement and manage digital customer engagement campaigns across multiple channels, such as voice, SMS and USSD. The company has recently received $125m in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Investment Advisers. Other investors in the round included Riyadh-based Saudi Technology Ventures (STV) and New York-based Foundry Group. This is one of the largest investment rounds for a Saudi technology company ever. It will help Unifonic cement its position as a leading international customer engagement platform in emerging markets.
The mission of Unifonic is to empower businesses with unlimited access to tools which enable them to effectively engage with their customers through multiple channels quickly and conveniently, allowing them to drive greater business success. With its powerful yet easy-to-use interface, AI-driven insights and response automation capabilities, Unifonic puts the power of multichannel engagement into hands of businesses who may lack the expertise or resources to do so on their own. To date, Unifonic has enabled over 250 million conversations between businesses and their customers worldwide, including large multinationals such as Siemens, Dell, P&G and Johnson & Johnson .
Overview of SoftBank and other investors
SoftBank is a Japanese multinational holding company specializing in venture capital, private equity, and investment banking. Founded in 1981, SoftBank owns leading technology companies such as Yahoo Japan, Sunrise (Japanese telecommunications), and SoftBank Robotics. In addition, through their Vision Fund, they have invested billions of dollars into innovative companies such as Uber and WeWork.
SoftBank is not the only major investor in the startup world. Since the late 2000s, notable venture capitalists have begun investing billions of dollars into startups to take these young companies public or reach buyout agreements with larger corporations. Other notable investors include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner-Perkins-Caufield & Byers to name a few.
Venture capitalists typically invest directly into private companies or by participating in seed or early stage fundraising rounds for the most promising startups. This allows smaller startups to circumvent traditional methods for raising capital such as IPOs or scaling back its operations due to a lack of funding. This has revolutionized the process for new ventures by making larger investments available during their early stages where they are most vulnerable to failure without reliable financial backing from venture funds such as SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
Market Analysis
The market analysis of the Saudi customer engagement platform Unifonic has been a key point of discussion lately. As the company announced that they have raised $125 million in funding from SoftBank and other investors, it is evident that their products and services are in high demand.
In this article, we will take a closer look at the current market for Unifonic’s products and services and analyze how this investment can help them capitalize on their current success.
Market size of customer engagement platform
Finding the right customer engagement platform could be daunting, as the market continues to grow with new entrants offering different solutions and pricing options. The global customer engagement platform market was estimated to be worth USD 8 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 14.4 billion by 2026 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3% during the forecast period from 2021-2026. This market is primarily driven by an increasing need for customer centricity in organizations, rising awareness about personalized customer engagement, adoption of mobile technologies, growing focus on customer experience management and omnichannel & multichannel analytics capabilities offered by companies within this space.
Recent developments such as Saudi-based communication API company Unifonic raising $125 million from SoftBank, Goldman Sachs & Bangi LLC have further opened up this segment and attracted investments from some of the largest banks in the world. Unifonic provides developers and brands with access to phone numbers needed for sending SMSs, making voice calls and providing outbound notifications while leveraging real-time analytics to better understand users’ engagement patterns. The funding is expected to help Unifonic take its services across emerging markets including Africa & Latin America in the coming years.
The rise of cloud-based solutions in this space has enabled companies like 8×8 Communications whose cloud communications platforms allow customers to engage with businesses seamlessly via text messages or video calls enabling businesses to save significantly on infrastructure costs further driving growth of such platforms.
Growth of customer engagement platform
The customer engagement platform market has been experiencing significant growth in recent years due to the rising use of cloud-based platforms and the growing adoption of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies have enabled customer engagement solutions to better understand user behaviors, deploy automated messaging solutions, create personalized user experiences, and offer intelligence-driven decisions. Furthermore, increasing investments by venture capitalists (VCs) and other strategic investors in customer engagement platforms further support the industry’s growth.
For instance, Saudi customer engagement platform Unifonic raised $125 million from SoftBank, Step Ventures and STV Inc. in 2019. The funding was used to continue developing Unifonic’s advanced targeted messaging services and its Artificial Intelligence engine, which helps analyze different regions’ customers’ behavior. This aids with personalizing marketing campaigns for each specific nation or region.
Other strategic investments in this space include:
- The acquisition of Bold360 by LogMein Inc., a provider of SaaS applications for communication & collaboration.
- Maritz Motivation Solutions Inc.’s acquisition of Fellowcrat Ltd., an AI-powered mobile app loyalty provider.
- Salesforce’s acquisition of an AI marketing start-up Datorama.
- Oracle’s investment into German chatbot maker Msg.ai and others.
The above acquisitions are expected to extend companies’ services and significantly enhance their offerings within customer relationship management (CRM), making them more attractive to users in greater markets.
These investments indicate that companies are seeing potential growth potential within AI-driven customer engagement platforms across use cases such as personalization targeting, sales automation & forecasting within different retail & eCommerce & telecom sectors. As a result, these strategic investments are expected to continue driving market share gains for these players during the forecast periodonwards.
Competitive landscape of customer engagement platform
Undertaking a market analysis of the competitive landscape of the customer engagement platform enables businesses to understand their position in the market compared to established industry players. As part of this process, it is important to closely examine Unifonic. This Saudi-based customer engagement platform recently secured $125 million from prominent investors such as SoftBank. Unifonic has become well-known for its ability to help companies grow and strengthen customer relationships by connecting them in more meaningful ways.
To gain an understanding of the competitive landscape for Unifonic, it is important to review its current products and services. Unifonic boasts a full suite of customer engagement tools and technologies that are easily and expansive in functionality. From powerful messaging templates, to automated text campaigns, drip marketing, AI conversation bots and personalized notifications – Unifonic provides companies with sophisticated capabilities in battling increased competition by engaging loyal customers through multichannel techniques. Further, they offer an intuitive dashboard where businesses can track KPIs’ progress over time; providing actionable insight into how they can better measure success and growth strategies.
It is also important to study selected competitors that are similar or have overlapping capabilities or target markets with Unifonic. While this will vary depending on the particular type of sector or geography targeted for analysis; some key competitors may include leading industry players such as Twilio Inc., Syniverse Technologies LLC, Bandwidth Inc., Marchex Inc., Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), Foursquare Labs Inc., Nimble Software Systems Ltd., NewVoiceMedia Ltd., Amazon Connect Ltd., Mobext Ltd., SendinBlue Ltd., Clarabridge LTD, Ringcenteral Tabsite Inc…..and many more! Analysis should thus involve identifying existing competition’s strengths & weaknesses compared to what differentiates Unifonic from its competition – including features like quality & coverage; as well as opportunities & barriers — leveraging competitive advantages while mitigating threats posed by competitive forces & dynamics will allow companies winning edge within their target markets going forward!
Unifonic’s Products
Saudi customer engagement platform Unifonic recently raised $125 million from Softbank and other investors.
Unifonic provides a suite of products and services, enabling businesses to engage their customers more meaningfully. This article will discuss the various products Unifonic provides and how it helps businesses reach out to their customers.
Overview of Unifonic’s products
Unifonic is a customer engagement platform that leverages mobile technology to provide personalized and interactive communication solutions. The company’s products help businesses to reach their targets globally, providing them with SMS, voice, WhatsApp, RCS and other communication channels. Unifonic’s main focus is on the Middle East and Asia markets.
Unifonic provides businesses with a comprehensive suite of engagement tools which include:
1) Inbound SMS: Businesses can use Unifonic to send personalized voice campaigns to their customers using inbound SMS messages. These messages allow businesses to interact with their customers more meaningfully and drive better customer engagement.
2) Outbound SMS: With outbound SMS services, businesses can start campaigns quickly without technical effort. Unifonic also facilitates notifications to send text messages directly from the platform with over 200+ included countries worldwide reaching over 1 billion devices through its M360 solution. This helps business better monitor consumer trends from different regions across the globe including the GCC and MENA countries like Saudi Arabia and leverage this data for improved market penetration strategies.
3) Intelligent Messaging: This service gives businesses intelligence by analyzing different types of customer behavior through Unifonic’s Machine Learning analytics capabilities which helps them improve communications for better customer experience.
4) Two-Way Messaging: Two-way messaging enables customers to interact via text or voice call and helps keep customer conversation going from both sides, unlike one-way messaging which only allows one side.
5) Voice Call Records : This allows businesses to store voice calls records within Platform3CX (a cloud-based software solution that provides real time insights into customer preferences). Customers can also keep track of their conversations, allowing them easier access rights management and further permission capabilities as needed by business needs.
6) Delivery Reports : Unifonic’s delivery reports provide clients insight into message sending performance and full visibility on status tracking, ensuring higher success rates for their texts or voice messages.
Unique features of Unifonic’s products
Unifonic provides many customer engagement services, including SMS, Voice, Whatsapp Business API, Missed calls and Email. These services offer the perfect mix of scalability and reliability at the click of a button.
Unifonic is known for its cutting-edge technology and modern development practices that enable customers to quickly deploy innovative solutions. With Unifonic’s low latency rate and fast API response time, users can access options such as automation through artificial intelligence (AI) or natural language processing (NLP), or even personalize messages with contextual features such as location targeting mobile device identification.
Customers can also tailor communication for their business with cost-effective tools such as distribution lists management tools and vanity sender IDs that make it easy to identify where an SMS message has been sent from. Companies can also utilize Unifonic’s custom reporting tool, which visually presents data with key performance indicators (KPI) tracking through color-coded post delivery analytics, providing businesses with accuracy in delivering personalized messages in real-time on any device or platform.
Overall, Unifonic offers unique features that help businesses communicate more personally and effectively with their target audience regardless of their chosen platforms or channels.
Benefits of Unifonic’s products
Unifonic’s technology offers businesses a range of customer engagement products and services that help to improve customer experiences. By providing a centralized platform, Unifonic enables businesses to streamline customer service workflow while gaining data-driven insights into consumer behavior. In addition, it offers an efficient communication infrastructure and incorporates advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and natural language processing to process consumer data in real-time.
Some of the benefits of Unifonic’s products include:
• Increased customer satisfaction — Companies can use Unifonic’s platform to create consistent and seamless customer experience by utilizing personalized notifications, automated messages, and tailored content for every consumer touchpoint. This leads to increased levels of customer satisfaction.
• Enhanced efficiency — Unifonic’s products provide a dashboard for users to identify, connect with, and manage customers without hassle or complexity. This allows businesses to optimize their resources across channels for efficient customer interaction.
• Data-driven intelligence — With its ability to monitor interactions and gather valuable real-time insights from conversations, Unifonic provides intelligent data on consumer trends that marketers can use for personalization strategies and efficient CRM practices.
Saudi Market
Unifonic, a customer engagement platform, recently raised $125 million from SoftBank and other investors. This capital infusion is a testament to the growing market potential of Unifonic’s products in Saudi Arabia.
In this article, we will look at the Saudi market and its potential for Unifonic’s products.
Overview of Saudi market
As a company that provides customer engagement platforms, Unifonic has seen a strong demand for its services in the Saudi market due to its growing population and economic growth. The Kingdom’s efforts to establish itself as an increasingly digital economy and its allowance of government-regulated telecommunications companies are key drivers for growth for companies like Unifonic.
Saudi Arabia has a population of 32.7 million people, with 80 percent using cellular phones and just over 75 percent using smartphones, according to 2019 figures from Ipsos MENAVIEW’s Connected Life survey report. The Kingdom also ranks third in internet users in the Middle East, behind only the UAE and Lebanon.
Encouragingly for Unifonic, there is an increasing demand among business stakeholders to leverage digital technology to reach customers faster and more efficiently — a trend driven even further by Covid-19 restrictions. In addition, as technology improves, so does the availability of Enterprise software packages such as CRM (Customer Relations Management) systems – which makes it easier for brands and organisations to embed communication channels into their existing customer service process flows.
This provides opportunities for businesses to use such software packages alongside related customer engagement platforms like those offered by Unifonic — thus enabling agencies or businesses to more precisely target their audiences through tailored cross-channel engagement strategies (such as SMS, phone calls etc.). This can result in increased customer satisfaction/retention rates and ultimately more efficient budget allocations towards customer tending processes/engagements; something Unifonic helps organisations achieve.
Growth of Saudi market
The Saudi market is one of the most dynamic and competitive markets in the world regarding consumer engagement platforms. For example, Unifonic, a Saudi-based consumer engagement platform, recently raised $125 million in funding from numerous investors including SoftBank, which indicates the potential that many investors see in the market’s growth.
Unifonic’s products span communication services tailored for businesses and individuals, such as SMS, voice and WhatsApp messaging. The platform also provides customer support services such as ticketing systems, interactive conversation flows and real-time monitoring.
With venture capital interest increasing yearly in Saudi offerings, Unifonic is expected to experience rapid growth within this space over the coming years. According to researchers at Statista, 23% of digital initiatives within the Kingdom focus on customer experiences aimed at creating higher levels of customer satisfaction—a key area that Unifonic has focused on.
In addition to providing an extensive range of products that cater to customers’ needs and improving customer experiences, Unifonic offers advanced analytics capabilities with automated insights into behaviour patterns. With many rich sources of data at its disposal—including daily revenues per user by channel–it can easily identify segmentation opportunities for even greater success in this highly competitive market.
Overall, due to its powerful features and advantages over traditional communication methods such as email or phone calls, Unifonic’s suite of products positions itself perfectly within the rapidly growing Saudi market offering innovative solutions to better serve customers’ needs through modern communication technologies today.
Opportunities in Saudi market
The Saudi market is a prime opportunity for Unifonic’s products, as it has a large population with high smartphone penetration and the potential for business transformation. In addition, the region’s consumers are tech-savvy and seeking new ways to interact with brands and engage in their digital services. By providing a customized customer engagement platform, Unifonic can tap into this untapped market with specific use cases that cater to the local context.
Additionally, Unifonic has recently secured $125 million in an investment round from SoftBank and other entities. This influx of fresh capital will provide significant resources to help enable expansion in the Saudi market. The funds will be used to build regional sales teams to target the large population of Arabic-speaking customers. In addition, they’ll also focus on developing technology tailored specifically to the Middle East market, allowing them to further customize their product offerings for local customers’ needs.
tags = customer engagement platform, Unifonic, $125 million, SoftBank, Riyadh-based, unifonic pifmartinbloomberg 125m fund sanabil saudi, unifonic pifmartinbloomberg series vision fund sanabil, Sanabil, MS, voice, WhatsApp communication
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