Agora.io Announces $70 Million in Series C Funding from Coatue Management

By PRNewswire On Nov 21, 2018

Agora.io Secures New Capital to Boost Its Global Live Video API Platform and Further Expand Global Operations to Disrupt the Voice, Video and Live Broadcasting Space

Agora.io, the leading voice, video and live broadcasting platform, announced that it has closed $70 million in a Series C round of funding led by Coatue Management, a leading technology investor known for its investments in Uber, SnapChat, Box.com, Lime, DoorDash, and others. Existing investors SIG, Morningside and Shunwei Capital participated in the latest round, which brings Agora’s total capital raised to $125 million to date.

Founded in 2014 by Tony (Bin) Zhao, a founding engineer at WebEx Communications (acquired by Cisco) and former CTO of Chinese social media giant YY.com, Agora is the leading provider of real-time voice, video and live broadcasting solutions for web and mobile applications. The Series C round follows an explosive year for Agora as the company experiences unprecedented growth and gains significant market share with new product releases like the React Native SDK and Unity Support, a wave of seasoned management hires, and a series of new partnerships with global technology innovators.

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“The Internet has steadily transformed the way people communicate over the last decade, but these interactions will continue to shift as technology continues to advance at a rapid pace,” said Tony Zhao, Founder and CEO of Agora. “We’re excited to be at the forefront of this movement as Agora continues to disrupt the real-time voice, video and live broadcasting space with solutions that are not only transforming the way we think about real-time engagement but also how it can affect our everyday lives, both online and offline. We are creating a new category of real-time communications, one that puts engagement at the core of the user experience, and we will continue leveraging our unique technology and global reach to further transform this space.”

“At a time when every industry feels saturated with an endless array of products and services, we view authentic real-time user engagement as a competitive edge for our partners,” said Reggie Yativ, CRO & COO of Agora. “It is very exciting working with innovative and forward-thinking customers and partners to deliver amazing applications across a wide range of industries, including social discovery, social media, e-commerce, gaming, education and many more. We are very grateful and delighted to have a partner like Coatue who shares our ideas and big plans for the future. With the help of our amazing team, we plan to rapidly expand our commercial, community and technology groups.”

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“Live video is like the live band that plays at your local shop. It’s dynamic and happening in-the-moment, and that’s what live video brings to our apps MeetMe, LOVOO, Skout, and Tagged,” said Geoff Cook, Chief Executive Officer of The Meet Group. “By integrating Agora’s voice and video APIs into our applications, we gave our users a new way to virtually meet and form authentic connections. Not only has live video created new revenue streams, it’s also become a big driver of user engagement and satisfaction.”

Accelerated by the proliferation of mobile and widespread Internet access across the globe, Agora is ushering in a new era of app-based communications with new opportunities for developers and businesses alike to introduce new layers of audience engagement. This past September, Agora passed two billion SDK installs, making it the most widely adopted RTC-based developer solution worldwide. Agora’s proprietary Software-Defined Real-Time Network (SD-RTN™) processes and routes an average of 10 billion minutes of live communications per month through 200 globally distributed data centers.