Cloud Telephony Service Knowlarity Raises $16 Mn In Funding From Sequoia And Mayfield

Sequoia Capital and Mayfield Advisors had led $16 Mn in cloud telephony services provider Knowlarity Communications Pvt. Ltd. Knowlarity plans to infuse the raised funds in technology and international expansion. Further, the company also planned out to acquire some of its competitors.

This is second round of funding that Knowlarity has raised. Earlier, it had raised $6 Mn in Series A round in 2012 led by Sequoia Capital.

Earlier this year, the company had acquired Delhi based startup Unicom Techlabs to fuel its global expansion. Internationally, it competes with Sequoia portfolio company – RingCentral. Knowlarity in July 2013 moved its base to Singapore, and now it is eyeing expansion in markets such as South-East Asia, West Asia and Latin America.

“Knowlarity is solving a big pain-point for businesses, allowing them to communicate faster, cheaper and better,” said Vikram Godse, managing director, Mayfield India.

The company targets to reach INR 75 Cr revenue by end of this fiscal and is in talks with 2-3 companies both in India and abroad for acquisition, which it expects to close in next 6 months.  “There is no fixed recipe for acquisitions,” said Ambarish.

Some of the players operating in the cloud telephony space include Ozonetel and Exotel, One97 Communications Ltd.

Currently, Knowlarity has clients such as Zomato, Via.com, Druva and Zipdial. It had reported revenues of about INR16 Cr in fiscal 2014. As per the company, Knowlarity has more than 6,500 small businesses that are using its services and it adds close to 500 users every month.

The company was founded in 2009 by IIT Kanpur batch-mates Ambarish Gupta and Pallav Pandey. The company had made headlines when co-founder Pallav Pandey left the company last year.