South Korea’s Toss Lab, the operator of regional Slack rival Jandi, said it has raised USD 13 million in Series B funding, claiming to be the first player in the country’s collaboration space to raise a total of USD 20 million to date.
SoftBank Ventures Asia led the funding round, which also included participation from SV Investment, Atinum Investment, Must Asset Management, Shinhan Capital, SparkLabs, and T Investment, according to a statement.
Launched in 2014, the enterprise team collaboration platform provides a suite of productivity tools, including topic-based group chat, task management, video conferencing, and third-party app integrations.
What are its future plans?
“With this round of funding, we plan to accelerate our sales and marketing efforts and recruit new talent for the global teams. This is one step closer to establishing Jandi as the leader in enterprise collaboration tools in Asia,” said Toss Lab CEO Matthew Kim.
A spokesperson for the company told Tech in Asia that Toss Lab currently has 40 staff members and plans to add another 10 to 15 more by the end of 2020. The company, however, declined to disclose any specifics on its expanded sales and marketing plans.
“Jandi, which has seen consistent and steady growth since 2014, is aiming to become the leading collaboration tool in Asia,” noted SoftBank Ventures Asia senior associate Jay Choi. According to the exec, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted more companies to arrange remote working setups for their employees, driving demand for collaboration platforms.
With this growth, Toss Lab said it will be going after traditional companies, such as those in the manufacturing and retail industries, which did not typically consider using collaboration software prior to the global crisis.
How much traction has it gotten?
The company claims Jandi has seen a revenue growth of over 100% in the last three years, standing as the leading collaboration software provider in Korea and Taiwan. The platform has also experienced a 100% growth in daily active users since early 2018 with over 2 million registered users.
Toss Lab said Jandi has amassed about 200,000 teams using its platform to date, ranging from small- and medium-sized businesses to large enterprise companies such as LG Corp. subsidiary LG CNS, local conglomerate CJ, and Nexen Tire.
Besides Korea and Taiwan, the company has also expanded to Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Middle East, supporting several languages including English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. According to the company, it will expand more aggressively in these markets in the foreseeable future.
What is the company’s funding history?
- Angel (2014): USD 2 million from SoftBank Ventures and Cherubic Ventures
- Pre-Series A (2016): USD 2.5 million from a funding round co-led by Qualcomm Ventures and Korea’s HnAP
- Series A (2017): USD 1.7 million from Hong Kong’s Ascent Capital Advisors and TicketMonster CEO Shin Hyun Sung, among others
- Venture (2018): USD 5.2 million from SBI Investment, The Korea Development Bank, Daekyo Investment, and Evergreen Investment Partners
This article was originally published by Tech in Asia.