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People prefer text messages over phone calls – especially when the company is on the other side. According to one reconnaissancetwo-thirds of consumers say they would switch to a company that offers text messaging as a communication option.
With the text message marketing industry expected To grow to $12.6 billion by 2025, it’s no surprise that vendors like Take Blip, which helps organizations manage their text messaging campaigns, will see huge success. Take a blink Over the past few years, it says, its customer base has grown to include more than 4,000 brands, including GM, Dell and Claro.
Founded nearly 25 years ago by Roberto Oliveira, Daniel Costa, Sergio Passos, Marcelo Oliveira and Antonio Oliveira, Take Blip today connects brands and customers across apps and platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, RCS and iMessage.
Of course, the business looked a lot different when it started in 1999. Smartphones as we know them didn’t exist, and apps like WhatsApp and Instagram hadn’t even been invented.
The company started as a mobile phone store, then entered the ringtone business. Then at the beginning of the chatbot craze in 2014, I focused again on conversational marketing.
“There is no doubt that the interface of digital experiences has been shifting toward conversational formats,” Oliveira said in a statement. “We’ve shown brands that social and chat are much more than communication channels; they are operational systems capable of attracting, selling, and delivering customer support with remarkable results.
In its latest incarnation, Take Blip helps businesses create AI-powered bots to answer questions and transfer customers to human representatives for more complex orders. Built-in tools allow brands to create conversation flows, track sentiment, and add things like payments support for conversational commerce.
“Using the Blip platform, brands can implement a feedback loop that ensures every new customer interaction is captured
“Better in the future,” Oliveira said. “Our goal is to help our customers identify areas of improvement in their chat applications, ultimately leading to enhanced user experiences.”
Take Blip also provides analytics to monitor the performance of customer reps — a feature that some reps may have trouble with. one reconnaissance It found that the pressure of responding to customer requests affects the mental health of more than four in five service reps, with three-quarters reporting that setting daily or weekly ticket targets increases their stress levels.
Oliveira emphasized that the monitoring features are optional and can be customized according to the brand’s needs.
Take Blip competes with Glia, Bird, Gupshup, Voxie, Emotive and others in the text-based marketing segment. Connectly, backed by Alibaba, is another competitor, as is Postscript, which focuses on e-commerce.
However, Take Blip has grown steadily, recording annual recurring revenue of more than $100 million in 2022. The company says its customers have created more than 300,000 chatbots using its tools, and it facilitates more than 50 million conversations daily through its apps. Social messaging.
Take Blip, which has been bootstrapped into 2020, this month closed a $60 million Series C funding round led by Softbank, with participation from Microsoft — a rare direct investment. This brings the company’s total capital to US$230 million, which will be directed towards international expansion and product development.
“In 2022, we made a dual commitment to our board of directors and shareholders: to maintain our path to sustainable growth while also targeting positive cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2023,” Oliveira said. “All our achievements and decisions have allowed us to enhance the company’s efficiency and productivity, enabling us to grow profitably – one of our top priorities. In 2023, we resumed generating cash, and we are now in a more comfortable position: we are growing and generating cash flow.
Mergers and acquisitions may also be in the works. In 2022, Take Blip bought Stilingue, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to monitor texts across channels. In 2023, it bought Gus, a Mexican conversational AI company.
Take Blip has more than 1,500 employees and offices in Brazil, Mexico and Spain. Its headquarters are located in São Paulo.
Latin American companies are becoming increasingly attractive to venture investors, thanks to growing talent and demand for middle-class-friendly services. According to the Latin American Private Capital Investment Association, the venture capital market in Latin America has reached its peak The second highest level ever in 2023, continuing a three-year trend.
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