Toku, Asia Pacific's only dedicated cloud communications provider, announced the completion of a $5 million Series A funding round. Delivery Hero-backed DX Ventures led the round, with participation from existing investors including Tembusu Partners and Neptune Invest Asia. The Singapore-based company will use the funding to enhance its product capabilities and coverage, so it can further simplify digital transformation for the region's businesses.
As much as 10% of IT budgets will be dedicated to cloud spending by 2023 as organisations adapt to the new post-pandemic normal. But for APAC businesses, a lack of organisational readiness and complex local regulatory frameworks make cloud migration a major headache. That's where Toku comes in, leveraging local expertise and a comprehensive cloud technology stack to enable fuss-free communication from anywhere on any device, as well as seamless integrations with existing business applications including Microsoft Teams, HubSpot and Salesforce.
The success of the funding round is recognition of Toku's strong growth since 2018 and an understanding that online communication channels are only becoming more crucial to businesses – both for customer engagement and hybrid working. It also underlines the belief among Toku's backers in the company's ambitious expansion plans, which involves new strategic partnerships and further development of its hosted contact centre (CCaaS) solution during the next 18 months.
The CCaaS offering is part of the next stage in Toku's evolution, to build an all-in-one platform for all its customers' communications needs incorporating CPaaS, UCaaS and CCaaS functionality, native telco connectivity and communication APIs.
"As the only native APAC player in our category, we're committed to supporting the region's businesses at every stage of the digital transformation journey with cloud solutions to drive customer engagement and support hybrid working," said Thomas Laboulle, Founder and CEO of Toku.
"Customer and employee experience are two of the biggest value drivers for businesses today, so it's impossible to overstate the importance of providing seamless interactions across locations, devices and platforms. With this funding, we can help businesses do just that by expanding our product capabilities and scaling to cover more of the region's ever-changing communications landscape."
The Series A round was led by DX Ventures, which identifies and supports the next generation of founder-led companies disrupting some of the world's most rapidly changing industries.
“We are thrilled to be leading Toku’s series A round,” said Duncan McIntyre, Managing Partner of DX Ventures. “With the cloud communications landscape still at an early stage, we see enormous potential for Toku to grow its base of loyal customers and further extend its regional leadership. We were impressed by the exceptional team and their vision for bringing enterprise-grade solutions to a wide variety of businesses across Asia Pacific.”
With the capital raised, Toku will also accelerate its plans for growth and expansion in the region, diversifying its hiring and bolstering its product offerings. The company plans to double its workforce in the next 12 months, adding more than 40 new roles across all core functions and opening several additional offices across APAC.
With digital transformation and global competitiveness at the forefront of the corporate agenda for Asia Pacific in the coming years, Toku remains focused on strengthening and expanding its cloud connectivity across the region.
