Attentive Mobile Inc. today said that it has secured $230 million in funding to support the growth of its namesake cloud service, which enables businesses to communicate with customers via text messages.

The startup closed the round at a $2.2 billion valuation. Lead investor Coatue was joined by more than a half-dozen other institutional backers, including Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global.

Attentive allows online retailers to send text messages to website visitors at opportune moments to encourage more purchases. An apparel brand, for example, could set up a workflow that detects when shoppers view a certain item and automatically sends them a discount code to increase the likelihood of a sale. It’s an effective strategy, according to Attentive: The startup claims customers generate an average of 18.5% of their e-commerce revenue through text messages.

Attentive has more than 2,000 customers including big brands such as Sephora. That’s up from about 1,000 customers five months ago, according to Forbes.

A key factor behind the startup’s growth is that its service promises to generate more sales than more traditional customer messaging channels, notably email. Attentive claims on its website that its text message promotions can drive two to six times more revenue than automatically triggered marketed emails. The startup also boasts an open rate of 99%. 

Attentive’s long-term plans extend beyond online retailers’ marketing departments. Its service is also useful for logistics providers, which can use it to regularly update shoppers about the status of their packages via text messages. Customer service teams, in turn, can create bots that automatically answer common questions such as return policy inquiries and direct more complicated requests to a human agent.

The startup is hiring more employees to help it target the revenue opportunities presented by those use cases. In the wake of the $230 million round, Attentive plans to more than double the size of its workforce to 1,000 staffers by the end of 2021 with a particular focus on growing its product development teams.

“Mobile and e-commerce growth have been accelerated over a matter of months this year, creating a lasting impact on consumer behavior,” said Attentive Chief Executive Officer Brian Long (pictured). “Within a few years, consumers will expect all of their favorite brands and businesses to support real-time conversations via text messaging.”

Enterprise software-as-a-service startups that promise to help companies improve their sales  processes have been drawing significant investor interest lately. Before Attentive, Gong I.O. Ltd. raised $200 million for its analytics platform, which uses machine learning to identify ways a company’s salespeople can close more deals. Earlier, in late July, Gong rival Chorus.ai Ltd. closed a $45 million round of its own. 

Image: Attentive