Calendly, an Atlanta-based cloud scheduling platform founded by a Nigerian born entrepreneur Tope Awotona has raised a $350 million investment, which now values the company at more than $3 billion, according to a Jan. 26 announcement.
Talking about the fund round, Boston-based expansion-stage firm OpenView Venture Partners, Iconiq Capital, and existing investor, led the fund round.
Some few metrics for the company’s growth
In 2020, Calendly doubled its subscription revenue to $70 million, according to the announcement. More than 10 million people use the platform each month to streamline the way they schedule meetings, including teams at companies such as Zoom and Twilio.
“Our profitable, unique, product-led growth model has led to Calendly becoming the most used, most integrated, most loved scheduling platforms for individuals and large enterprises alike”
“While we considered outside investment an unnecessary distraction, we made the decision to partner with OpenView and Iconiq because of their insight and extended network within the tech industry”
The CEO, Tope Awotona said
A representative of Calendly also explained…
“This fundraising round is Calendly’s first since receiving $550,000 in 2016 from local firm Atlanta Ventures and OpenView”
He reveals that the company will use the $350 million investment to provide liquidity for early shareholders and employees and continue product innovation.
The software startup also added two new senior executives at the end of 2020 to grow its employees and revenue.
Short History of Tope Awotona’s Entrepreneurship Experience
Calendly was founded by Tope Awotona, who grew up in Nigeria but moved to the United States after the death of his father when he was a teenager. Before Tope discovered Calendly, he has created three different Startups, all of which failed one after the other. His first try in starting a company was a dating site that didn’t launch due to a lack of resources. After this, he made an e-commerce site selling projectors, but due to low sales and being lack of interest, it failed again.
But Tope didn’t give up just yet. He moved on to selling grills, but this venture met the same fate as the projectors.
Awotona founded Calendly in 2013, after years of trying and failing, He discovered the inspiration for Calendly at the Atlanta Tech Village, a startup incubator started by serial software entrepreneur David Cummings. This time around unlike every other Startup he had tried to build, he got this right.
In about five years after its launch, Calendly was seeing a 100% growth rate with more than 30 million people using the software. Now, Awotona has his sights set on $1 billion in revenue, he said in the announcement.
Talking about this latest investment, Awotona said, “While we considered outside investment an unnecessary distraction, we made the decision to partner with OpenView and Iconiq because of their insight and extended network within the tech industry,”
Presently Calendly is valued at $3 billion and remains a platform that provides a quick way to manage open spaces in your calendar. While they plan to increase their customer base to reach a larger audience, the company plans to add some new tools that will enhance their customers’ scheduling experiences.