Warburg Pincus has invested a US$100m Series A for Brazil-based API communication platform Take Blip.
(Press Release) The leading API communication platform in Brazil completes its first equity financing round
- Take is one of the most innovative companies in the digital communication space;
- The company is a WhatsApp Business API Solution Provider, Google partner for Google Business Messages, RCS and Google Assistant, Apple Business Chat Provider and Microsoft ISV
- Over 1.5 billion messages / month running through Take Blip, the company’s proprietary developer-first platform
- With a highly scalable business model, the company has grown fivefold in the past 2 years, reaching a US$40m ARR in 2020
- This first equity round led by Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm with over US$50b under management, will accelerate the company’s growth roadmap and finance its international expansion
Led by founding partners Roberto Oliveira, Daniel Costa and Marcelo Oliveira, Take Blip is an API-first communication platform that manages how enterprises engage with customers by connecting several corporate workflows (CRM, Customer Service, Analytics, etc.) with conversational channels such as WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger and Google RCS.
The company caters to over 750 clients, including several Brazilian industry leaders such as Claro, Itaú Unibanco, Coca-Cola, Localiza, Fiat, TruckPad and others. Through Take Blip, customers can discover, engage and transact with brands and businesses in conversational channels with better user experience and lower costs. “Customer service is one of the main challenges faced by companies, regardless of their size. The use of automation and software integration is extremely powerful to upgrade the customer journey. Our platform offers an easy way to deliver a high level of service and personalized interactions at a low cost”, according to Daniel Costa, Take Blip’s Chairman and CHRO.
“We are very excited about Take Blip. Very rarely we find a company with this level of product-market fit and growth pace combined with strong economics and an engaging entrepreneurial corporate culture – and we have found it in Brazil” said Ash Somani, managing director, Warburg Pincus.
“Take Blip is at the center of two extremely relevant shifts in this digital era. The first is that the internet has become conversational. People want to experience, discover, engage and transact with brands as they do with friends, through messaging platforms and social media. The second is the positive use of data and artificial intelligence to predict what is the next best interaction a company can have with each customer. Take solves both challenges and in a matter of weeks we fast-forward a few years of our clients’ digital strategy” stated Take Blip CEO Roberto Oliveira.
“Ultimately this is a huge market – in the near future every single company will have to be part of the conversational internet just as they had to launch a website in the near past – and we are confident Take Blip has the right team to help its clients in this journey” added Piero Minardi, head of Warburg Pincus in Latin America.
Take Blip’s strategic objectives include scaling its Brazilian operations through investments in sales, marketing, customer support and R&D, as well as the international expansion to key markets such as USA, Europe, and Mexico.
Lazard acted as lead financial advisor to Take alongside Itaú BBA.
About Take
Founded in 1999, Take is mobile internet pioneer in Brazil. The company was the market leader in developing SMS applications and ringtones, when it was sold in 2005. Years later, the original founders repurchased the company and developed Take Blip, the leading Conversational Intelligence Platform in Brazil. Nowadays, the company is a WhatsApp Business API Solution Provider, official Facebook Messenger provider, Microsoft and IBM ISVs, Amazon Alexa developer partner, Google partner for Google Business Messages, RCS and Google Assistant, and approved Messaging Service Provider for Apple Business Chat. https://take.net/
About Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing. The firm has more than $53 billion in private equity assets under management. The firm’s active portfolio of more than 185 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector, and geography. Warburg Pincus is one of the most active growth investors in TMT globally, having invested over US$20 billion in more than 330 companies in the space, always seeking to partner with management teams to build durable companies with sustainable value. Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 19 private equity funds, which have invested more than $84 billion in over 900 companies in more than 40 countries. The firm is headquartered in New York and has been present in Brazil for 10 years, backing successful growth cases such as Petz, Eleva Educação, Grupo GPS and Superlogica. For more information please visit www.warburgpincus.com.