To effectively interact with customers, a company must first provide a communications medium that they’re comfortable using. Layer Inc. believes that the best approach is replicating the familiar experience offered by WhatsApp and other popular mobile messaging services.

This pitch today landed the startup a $15 million investment led by Greycroft Partners. The fund was joined by the venture capital arms of Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc., as well several repeat backers that contributed to Layer’s previous $14.5 million raise back in 2014. Chief Executive Officer Ron Palmeri told VentureBeat that the new round was “substantially oversubscribed.”

The startup’s rapid growth during the three years between the investments no doubt is a key reason behind the investor interest. Palmeri estimates that Layer’s average deal size increased tenfold in the past 12 months alone on the back of its efforts to sign up larger companies for its messaging service. Delivered from the cloud, the offering provides the ability to embed a mobile chat interface into a website or app without having to build everything from the ground up.

Layer manages the infrastructure through which messages are processed and enables companies to easily customize the end-user interface according to their needs. A bank might use the platform to create a live support feature for its client portal, while online retailers can let representatives display products directly in the chat window. It’s also possible to add integration with Microsoft Translator and other third-party services if the built-in feature set isn’t enough.

Today’s investment will enable Layer to build additional capabilities as it works to target more industries. As part of this effort, the startup revealed that it has acquired a messaging service called Cola. The app provides the ability to share graphs, videos and other multimedia content in messages, a feature that Layer will incorporate into its platform to help enterprise clients better engage their users. 

Source: StockSnap