Online companies spend critical marketing dollars to get prospects to their websites in the hopes they’ll convert to customers. However, the Baymard Institute recently found that 69.99% is the average documented cart abandonment rate. Any improvement in the conversion rates will yield billions of dollars in recoverable revenue across the internet ecosystem. Regal.io takes a data-driven approach to improve conversion through its automated SMS and call platform that allows companies to reach out to potential customers at high-intent moments like the checkout. By leveraging data from APIs, native integrations, CRM systems, and behavioral data, Regal.io allows merchants and sellers of software to trigger the right message at the right time to drive conversion and keep the conversation going through its drag-and-drop Journey Builder. The platform also includes a branded Caller ID function that allows calls to be placed from the brand itself instead of from generic unfamiliar numbers and also includes an agent module that serves as a unified call and messaging tool that tracks customer action and communications. Outbound calling has typically been used for initial sales outreach and cold calls, Regal.io makes it a part of the customer journey. Since its launch in 2020, the company has built a roster of 100+ customers, powers 1M+ conversations a month, and clients using the platform have seen a 25% revenue lift.
AlleyWatch caught up with Regal.io Cofounder and CEO Alex Levin to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Regal.io, the outbound phone and SMS sales solution, announced that it has raised $38.5M in Series A funding led by Emergence Capital. Existing investors Founder Collective and Homebrew also participated, and were joined by Flex Capital, Inspired Capital, Operator Collective, and executives from industry-leading sales and marketing companies including Braze, HubSpot, Salesforce and Zoom. Regal.io previously raised an unannounced $3.6M Seed round bringing the total raised to date to $42.1M.
Tell us about the product or service that Regal.io offers.
Regal.io is the outbound phone and SMS sales solution built to drive more conversations so brands can hit their growth goals way faster. Key features of Regal.io’s solution:
- Drag-and-drop Regal.io Journey Builder enables managers to trigger and personalize call and text journeys to high-intent buyers at the right moments based on large volumes of real-time event data streamed to Regal.io. The data comes via native integrations or APIs, and includes customer website usage, CRM data, and other behavioral time series data.
- Regal.io Branded Caller ID for cell phones (different from landline caller id, also known as CNAM) changes the caller id on cell phones from an unknown number to the name of the brand so the customer knows who is calling. No customer opt in or integration is required to brand calls on all 400 million cell phones in the US.
- Regal.io Unified Agent Desktop gives sales teams a unified call and text message tool, and timely, intelligent information about where the customer is in the process and where they got stuck.
What inspired the start of Regal.io?
After our experience building a phone sales team at Angi (NASDAQ: ANGI) on traditional omnichannel contact center software, Rebecca Greene (cofounder) and I realized there had been a massive underinvestment in outbound calling technology, which limited how sales and marketing teams could use the channel. We founded Regal.io to build an entirely new tech stack for powering calls that would provide customers a better experience, and give brands the tools to drive more revenue through this critical channel.
How is Regal.io different?
We are focused on using outbound sales in B2C, and most B2C contact center software is focused on customer service. We founded Regal.io to help brands realize the incredible power of calling customers and have developed new technology that empowers brands to transform cold calls from unknown numbers into intelligent calls.
What market does Regal.io target and how big is it?
100+ customers use Regal.io including Angi (formerly Angie’s List), Career Karma, Fidelity Life, RefiJet, Ro (parent company to Roman), SoFi and The Farmer’s Dog. Regal.io is aimed primarily at “high consideration” consumer businesses like healthcare, insurance, lending, local services, education, and subscription e-commerce, which represent more than half of the consumer economy.
What’s your business model?
Saas.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
Driving growth is the top priority for online brands. As deploying digital marketing dollars becomes table stakes, the focus has shifted to efficiently converting the 95%+ of prospective customers that ‘abandon’ the self-serve online flows. As our product drives incremental conversion (and thus revenue), brands are continuing to invest heavily in expanding their use of Regal.io to help them hit their revenue goals.
Driving growth is the top priority for online brands. As deploying digital marketing dollars becomes table stakes, the focus has shifted to efficiently converting the 95%+ of prospective customers that ‘abandon’ the self-serve online flows. As our product drives incremental conversion (and thus revenue), brands are continuing to invest heavily in expanding their use of Regal.io to help them hit their revenue goals.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
“Regal.io has incredible founder-market fit. It’s rare to find a team that has experience leading large, complex call centers and has also worked on modern, data-driven, performance marketing and sales teams,” said Jake. “Regal also has amongst the strongest product-market fit we’ve ever seen, a core reason why it’s growing faster than even Zoom did at a similar stage.”
“I am impressed with how fast Regal.io came out of the gate. Regal has an enormous opportunity in front of them, and they are executing flawlessly,” Added Satya Patel, a General Partner at investor Homebrew.
“Regal.io is filling a critical market need, and most impressively, I’ve heard rave reviews from our other portfolio companies that have become Regal power users.” said David Frankel, Managing Partner at investor Founder Collective.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Regal.io revenue has grown over 4x in the last 12 months, and is projected to 3x over the next 12 months.
Regal.io was 16 people 1 year ago, and we are 80 people today (5x in a year). And will double headcount over the next 12 months.
