China’s cloud communications startup EaseMob has secured $12.5 million USD in Series B funding from returning investors of Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners China and SIG China.
EaseMob is really on a roll since last year. The current round followed three successive financing rounds in 2014, a 5 million RMB (roughly $805,500 USD) angel round from Matrix Partners China in May, a $5 million USD Series A from SIG China in August and a $3 million USD from Sequoia Capital in October.
EaseMob is a PAAS cloud platform that allows developers to integrate instant messaging, voice and data services to their apps by providing open API and SDK packages. It offers full support for Android, iOS and web platforms. As of H1 2015, the services has accumulated 23,062 apps, while its SDK covers 251 million end customers.
A Sequoia Capital representative said the follow-up investment was triggered by the huge potential of the customer service market in China, the excellent team, as well as healthy growth within the company. According to the venture capitalist, EaseMob’s key performances indexes on customer base, daily messages, and DAU surged rapidly in the past year.
As cloud communications technologies are being used increasingly by various businesses, China is witnessing a boom of third-party cloud IM services thanks to the simplicity of the technology and lower investment requirements. Major players in the battlefield include Ronglian, Yunzhixun, and RongCloud. A report by CNIT-Research shows that EaseMob is taking a dominat share in the emerging market.
Market Share of Top Could Communication Platforms in China
Source: CNIT-Research
(Research is based on data collected between January 1st and April 25th, 2015)
Image credit: ShutterStock
