Tidio, a Polish startup that develops live chat supported by chatbots, has acquired over PLN 4 million (almost one million euros) from the Inovo Venture Partners fund, thus reaching a market valuation of over PLN 80 million (over 18,5 million euros), Polish Business Insider reported. Reportedly this is the largest investment of the Polish fund made to date, and only second investment round for Tidio.
As announced by the startup itself, the funding will be used to develop new marketing strategies and focus more on machine learning that will improve their product. Moreover, the team of now 50 members it’s ready to double its size by the beginning of 2021.
“We’re more than excited to share the latest news with you: Inovo Venture Partners has officially become our investor! It is an amazing opportunity for us to grow even faster. With Inovo Venture Partner’s support, we plan to develop new marketing strategies and focus more on machine learning that will greatly improve our product. It’s also a perfect time to think about people who will make this growth happen. Currently, we have 50 fantastic talents on the board and by the beginning of 2021, we aim to double this number” reads the announcement made on Tidio Facebook page.
Founded in 2014 in Szczecin, Poland, Tidio is a startup that develops live chat supported by chatbots using machine learning to automate communication between companies and clients. In the world of many companies providing chat apps, what makes Tidio special is its focus on small and medium companies, very often and micro-companies with one or two employees. Their vision is to “shorten the distance between the customer and the company”, and provide all their users with more info on the parties interested in their product/services enabling them easier and direct communication.
Given these particular characteristics is what makes Tidio’s chatbot the 4th most popular tool of its kind in the world. According to the startup, their solution has been implemented by over 140,000 services online from around the world. Over 10,000 customers pay a monthly subscription for using the service.
“Tidio differs from the competition by focusing on the smallest businesses and providing them with the highest quality product”, says Tytus Gołas, co-founder and CEO of Tidio, INN Poland news site reported. “One of the most important features of our product are chatbots that use AI and Machine Learning. Until now, this technology was beyond the reach of micro and small companies. We want to change that. The numbers are the best proof of our clients’ satisfaction: in May we were the seventh most popular live chat in the world, today we have fourth place. Thanks to the support of Inovo, we will be able to grow even faster and maybe we will be on the top next year”, he adds.
The success of the startup starts to become visible two years ago. Namely, in 2017 Tidio won InCredibles, an acceleration program created by Kulczyk Investments, dedicated to the most promising, polish startups and since 2018 they are supported by bValue, one of the biggest, Polish venture capital firms. Today, their product has been tested by over 1 million users from 194 countries, and its live chats welcome Internet users in over 140 thousand websites. And now with the funding made by Inovo, the startup wants to expand more in United States and Western Europe.
Their success is also proved by the revenue that the startup is making only in a year. According to Golas the revenue growth that the startup will see by the end of this year is 2.5 times higher than what the startup had at the beginning of 2019; as announced by the CEO himself, the startup started the year with $90K (over €81K) and will end up with $230K (€207K) on their balance.
For Inovo Venture Partners, what made Tidio worth investing in, is the fact that the startup stood out on the Polish market that much that Michal Rokosz, partner at Inovo thinks that this startup is on the track to become a Polish unicorn.
“We analyzed over 600 startups this year. Tidio stood out not only by the rapid increase in the number of customers but also by a very analytical approach to product development and acquisition channels. The team led by Tytus Gołas is on track to create a Polish unicorn. They have everything they need to succeed: a strong team and a refined product with the potential for further development. They also operate in a niche market: the small and medium-sized enterprises sector, which until now has been overlooked by larger players” says Rokosz.