Introduction
Calendly, a cloud scheduling platform, has raised $350 million in a Series F funding round, which puts its valuation at a staggering $3 billion. This round was led by Iconiq Growth and included participation from existing investors Citi Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and OpenView.
With this new funding, Calendly is well positioned to grow and expand its product offerings.
Overview of Calendly
Calendly, a cloud-based scheduling startup, recently announced that it has raised $350M in Series E funding from Sapphire Ventures and Iconiq Growth. This brings the total venture capital raised to $550M, making the company valued at an ambitious $3B.
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Atlanta, Calendly takes the hassle out of back-and-forth communication when scheduling events with contacts across industries. The startup provides a simple platform enabling users to create custom links or embeddable widgets to easily share calendaring options. Users can access automated reminders, calendar sync setup, and event analytics services when the process is completed. The platform’s features span over a dozen languages and over 800 applications including Outlook, Salesforce, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.
The recent influx of funding is said to drive Calendly’s product development, expand into international markets, and assist in customer service operations for smaller businesses. With the help of this new capital and its ever growing customer base (clients currently include UBEREats and Autotrader), Calendly is sure to continue paving the way towards simplifying event scheduling around the globe!
Overview of the funding round
Calendly, a cloud-based scheduling startup, has raised $350 million in its latest funding round at a whopping $3 billion valuation. The money will fuel the development of Calendly’s ever-growing suite of meeting and scheduling solutions.
The company said it is well on its way to becoming shaper in the ever-evolving and expanding industry of digital scheduler tools. Silver Lake led this new round, followed by Iconiq Capital, Kleiner Perkins, OpenView Ventures and IVP. Participating through secondary transactions were capital-providing venture firms Marker LLC, Suvretta Capital Management LP and Endure Capital LLC with investors including HOF Capital and Carrick Capital Partners.
This brings Calendly’s total amount of money raised to date to US$480m since its founding in 2013. In 2020 alone, Calendly received US$200m investment which helped it become one the fastest growing startups on the market. As part of this new round of funding Calendly announced that two new board directors; Bruce Ovbiagele from Silver Lake, founder for tech companies such as Zscaler Inc., and Elliot Loughridge from Iconiq Capital had joined their team.
Overall this development signals a major milestone for Calendly’s already impressive growth trajectory forecasted to continue as calendars transition online next year.
Cloud scheduling startup Calendly raises $350M on $3B valaution
Calendly, a cloud-based scheduling startup, announced this month that it had closed a massive Series D funding round of $350 million, giving the company a total valuation of $3 billion. The Series D round was led by Iconiq Capital, with participation from Tiger Global, OpenView, and others.
This latest financing round follows previous rounds back in 2018 and 2019 which raised $350 million and $600 million respectively. As a result, the company is now valued at 3 times greater than it was 18 months ago.
Let’s take a closer look at the details of the funding round.
Investors involved in the round
The Series E funding round for Calendly was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from IVP, Owl Ventures and other new investors. In the past two years, Calendly has raised over $500 million in total funding at a reported valuation of $3 billion, making it one of the most highly valued startups in Atlanta and the Southeast.
Andreessen Horowitz, who led the series B round in 2018 and has been a key investor since joining Calendly’s seed round in 2016, is one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms. Other investors participating include iconic technology venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and active early stage edtech investor Owl Ventures. Previous investors Salesforce Ventures, Battery Ventures and GV (formerly Google Ventures) also participated in this round.
Amount of funding raised
The cloud-based scheduling software startup Calendly has raised $350 million in a Series E funding round. The recently closed funding round was led by existing investors, making this one of the largest venture capital rounds this year. With this investment, Calendly’s valuation has surged to an estimated $3 billion.
The company intends to use this new influx of capital to accelerate global expansion and scale their operations even further. Along with new investments, Calendly added experienced technology leaders across the industry as strategic advisors to its board of directors.
This is another victorious milestone for the cloud scheduling startup with more than 10 million people using its tools. The announcement followed a series of moves made by the company in 2020 in preparation for increased demand. It accelerated growth, including launching international products like MsgClub — a messaging platform designed to enable businesses to communicate with customers through SMS, WhatsApp, WeChat and Viber — and expanding globally into new markets such as Spain and Mexico.
Valuation of Calendly
Calendly, a cloud based scheduling startup, recently announced the closing of its Series E funding round with a total investment of $350 million. This new round of funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $465 million and values the company at $3 billion. The leading investors in this round were General Atlantic and ICONIQ Capital.
This marks a significant milestone for Calendly as it focuses on providing customers with an easy-to-use meeting scheduling platform. Over the past year, Calendly has grown significantly, achieving numerous milestones including adding hundreds of thousands additional paid users and launching new premium products.
The latest capital injection will give the company a strong foundation to focus on innovation, expansion into different markets, continued product development, and further growth into global regions in 2021. As part of its focus on customer success and expansion initiatives, Calendly also plans to double their workforce by hiring over 300 new employees in 2021.
Overall, this recent round of funding further demonstrates the positive industry sentiment towards Calendly’s growth trajectory as one of the most disruptive platforms in cloud scheduling space. In addition, increased investor confidence and commitment from leading venture capital firms such as General Atlantic and ICONIQ Capital provide a strong foundation for continuing success in 2021 and beyond.
Impact of the Funding Round
The funding round for Calendly is one of the largest ever for a venture-backed scheduling startup. It is an impressive feat that highlights the company’s growth and its product’s success.
With the additional capital, Calendly can strengthen its leadership position in the scheduling market and continue to innovate. This funding round will undoubtedly greatly impact the company’s future.
Expansion plans for Calendly
The recent funding for Calendly follows the company’s $150 million Series D secured in February and reinforces its position as a leader in the cloud-based scheduling software space. With this new round of funding, Calendly has a total of $500 million raised since it was founded in 2013.
This additional investment will help further Calendly’s mission of becoming the go-to event and appointment scheduling solution. Specifically, it will fuel growth initiatives such as international expansion, product development and development of strategic partnerships. In addition, it will enable continued investment in employees, giving them access to training and other opportunities not available before.
As stated by CEO Tope Awotona: “This fresh round of fundraising pairs perfectly with our improved offerings and positions us on an even more exciting trajectory…The extra capital will be invested in our teams so that we can give them the needed resources to reach new heights”.
Calendly plans to expand its current reach across over 150 countries globally and is exploring opportunities that are helping customers save time while still being able to have meaningful interactions – no matter where they are located. The startup also plans on fortifying its integrations with larger enterprise platforms like Slack, Salesforce, Avaya Cloud Office, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlooks, among others. Overall this new injection of funds should help the company scale quickly across multiple sectors worldwide for the long haul.
Plans for the new funding
Following the close of its funding round, cloud scheduling startup Calendly released a statement laying out its plans for the new capital. The company plans to use the newly injected funds to expand its operations across end markets, enhance its AI-driven technology platform, and develop new products to improve its customer experience.
Calendly CEO Tope Awotona said: “Reaching this milestone validates our vision of helping people worldwide collaborate and easily join meetings. We plan to use these resources to pursue our mission of providing software that simplifies how people coordinate meetings with the people they work most closely with—internally and externally.”
The startup confirmed that some of this newly acquired capital will be used to build on their evolving artificial intelligence stack, bringing even more predictive capabilities while at the same time investing in additional staffing and support infrastructure. This investment will likely help create new features and increased customizability which could result in significant gains for customers who rely on Calendly for fast, efficient scheduling operations.
The company also wants to expand in international markets with great potential such as Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. By doing so, it believes it can extend its reach beyond the United States while preserving a globally enterprise-ready presence without sacrificing quality or customer satisfaction.
Potential impact on the market
Calendly’s latest funding round of $350 million will likely have several implications for the software and technology sector and the wider market.
First, it will raise the profile of cloud scheduling solutions, potentially opening up new opportunities for companies investment in this area. This could include further investments in Calendly, or new solutions based on its systems and models.
It also sets a high valuation precedent that other start-ups could seek to emulate. The successful round has effectively set a new bar for future companies looking to raise significant capital from investors willing to take a gamble on early-stage solutions targeting long-term growth potential.
Additionally, the funds will be used by Calendly to expand its influence and grow its customer base through an increase in product development and marketing outreach. This could help it establish itself as one of the leading solutions in meeting scheduling software services industry due to its ongoing success on both fronts: product innovation and customer demand.
Finally, it also marks another step closer towards an IPO for Calendly as increased investor interest is likely as more capital is deployed in company’s operations by implementing more strategic growth strategies that generate higher returns over longer periods which make them attractive potential investments when they are eventually floated on public markets.
Conclusion
The successful investment round and sky-high valuation of Calendly speaks to the growing demand for cloud-based solutions and the potential that Calendly and similar startups have to transform how people collaborate and manage their time. By leveraging advanced tech and innovative business practices, Calendly has become one of the most successful cloud scheduling startups.
Let’s explore what this news and its implications mean for the industry.
Summary of the funding round
Calendly, a cloud-based scheduling startup, has announced that it has closed a $350 million funding round led by primary investor Insight Partners. This brings the company’s total financing to more than half a billion dollars and its valuation to $3 billion.
The new money will allow Calendly to accelerate its global growth, add more features and products to their platform, and expand its sales and customer success teams. It will also enable the company to further improve its AI-based scheduling technology.
Founded in 2013, Calendly has become one of the most popular meeting scheduling platforms with customers ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies like Salesforce and Microsoft. The company employs over 200 people across offices in Atlanta, Georgia; Kiev, Ukraine; and London, England.
The new funding round will support Calendly’s continued focus on delivering an outstanding user experience while expanding into new products and markets worldwide.
Outlook for Calendly
The success of Calendly reflects a wider trend of cloud-based companies that are revolutionizing how businesses and individuals interact. In addition, Calendly has experienced significant growth over the past two years with its current valuation, further emphasizing the promise for cloud-based businesses.
Looking forward, Calendly is well positioned to continue to expand its user base and explore new markets. With a focus on customer support and their commitment to creating innovative products, Calendly is poised to succeed. As more organizations shift towards digital collaboration and online scheduling tools, Calendly is also expected to benefit from this trend. Additionally, with experienced investors on board, Calendly will benefit from access to strategic advice and capital resources as it seeks new growth opportunities.