Congrats to Robert and team, great people
MessageBird raises $60M Series A
21–30 of 77 posts
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#22I 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.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#23I 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 presume that their traction suggests they could get to IPO and/or a stellar exit within a short time frame. If you have the magic formula for growth, taking down a huge round makes a ton of sense.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#2460M for a SMS gateway in 2017. Confused.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
MessageBird's SMS pricing in the US is $0.005/SMS, while Twilio's is $0.0075/SMS. So not sure where you get the 10x from.
I meant EU pricing is 10x US pricing, but it's the same for all providers I've seen so far.
That's because the EU model is the sender pays the full fee, in the US the fee is split between sender and recipient.
A lot of people are on plans which let them receive unlimited texts in the USA, which means the provider is absorbing the cost, but it still is much cheaper to send.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#26We'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.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#27I 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…
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.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#28I 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…
On the bad side: Often times VCs demand board seats in a large round and put in terms in the contract so they can block acquisitions. The ballpark is that VCs would like to get back ~5x valuation. I don't know what the valuation in this Series-A was but I assume it was north of 200m, meaning they would need to exit as a unicorn.
On the good side: It's not unusual for founders to demand a secondary sale to take some money off the table when VCs come in, especially in successful startups that raise lots. This is the counter "de-risk" move that the founders can (and probably should) pull so everybody can swing for the fences and the founders aren't the ones holding the bag if things go wrong.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who would you recommend over them?
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.
So which would you recommend for documentation and which would you recommend for price?
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#30I 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…
Don't dwell on the letter of the round. Some companies raise 10M in Series E because they don't require as much capital. Others raise more in Series A because they do.
Telecom is a capital intensive industry, which is why startups need to raise such large amounts of money. This is also why Twilio needed so much money (>$200mm) though they did take it in later rounds.
Venture and Growth Investors are only looking for $1 billion plus exits, so the $100M breakeven doesn't bother them. Instead, they ask, "What's a new telecom company going to be valued at?" and "What are the chances this can get there?" and "What will our ownership be then?". They multiply the three #s, and then do some discounting.