Perspectives

PeakSpan's Thesis for Tidio

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Phil Dur

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Kyle Reitinger

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Cassie Alexe

July 13, 2022

The PeakSpan team is thrilled to have led Tidio’s Series B financing, partnering with the Company and existing investors as Tidio continues to emerge as a leader in the live chat / conversational AI category. The Company’s platform is beloved by roughly 100K small- and medium- sized customers across the world and was ranked as the 11^th highest customer satisfaction software product according to G2 Crowd. We could not be more excited to partner with this team as they continue to develop a best-in-class customer support / experience platform for SMB eCommerce brands!

As COVID-19 spurred a rapid shift online and increased eCommerce volumes to all-time highs, merchants of all shapes and sizes have struggled to maintain strong customer engagement. This was especially apparent in the long-tail, where resources are limited and competition has only strengthened its market position via fulfillment capabilities and a near-limitless balance sheets. For these small businesses (the proverbial “davids”), delivering a top-tier customer support experience is not a trivial task – but is mission-critical to building brand loyalty and surviving against the industry’s “goliaths”. Tidio has taken a particularly strategic approach to providing value in this market – emphasizing ease of use, disruptive pricing, and a rich feature set that fits an SMB merchant’s needs and budget. Tidio’s differentiated approach to this category has enabled the Company to thrive in the long-tail and develop highly strategic market positioning.

Most importantly – Tytus, the management team, and the entire organization represent the absolute best-of-the-best and are a key catalyst for providing such exceptional results. Customers frequently regard their interactions with the Tidio team as a source of delight and this connective tissue represents a key “crown jewel” for the business. Moreover, the top-tier product quality and go-forward platform roadmap demonstrate an astute understanding of customer needs and industry dynamics – positioning the business to deliver upon its mission and become the go-to solution for Tidio’s ICP.

Our Thesis for Tidio

Our thesis for Tidio is relatively straight forward. In today’s eCommerce era, delivering high-quality, remote customer support has become table-stakes for even the smallest of online merchants. Especially with the continued expansion of social channels – both in number and reach – digital customer support is now mandatory to survival. But for SMB merchants, it is a constant struggle to be omni-present and provide support across all channels in real-time. And these solutions need to provide more than just reactive support. Instead, businesses increasingly need the ability to proactively engage customers across their entire digital journey – both pre- and post-sale.

Often with a limited headcount and resource base, this ICP requires a solution that can both aggregate consumer inquiries (live chat) and simultaneously overlay automation (chatbots) to save time and money without sacrificing customer happiness. Further – a lack of back-end IT resources mandate a dead-simple, no/low-code approach that is easy to install and operate regardless of technical experience. Tidio has met these challenges and more – helping ~100K merchants to grow their sales and their business by providing exceptional customer experiences.

Key Market Drivers

1. SMB Growth

a. The number and growth of SMB businesses continues to outpace the broader market

2. eCommerce Growth

a. Acceleration of eCommerce adoption on the back of COVID-19 is well-documented and industry experts continue to forecast further market share capture from brick-and-mortar

3. Consumers expect online support channels

a. Surveys show that up to 70% of consumers prefer online support as opposed to traditional telephone engagement

4. Among digital support channels, live chat and chatbots are becoming the preferred mode of communication

a. Live chat has been shown to have the highest levels of customer satisfaction among support channels

b. Chatbot customer satisfaction has risen rapidly over the past 12-24 months

c. Response times for live chat is proven to be significantly faster than other mediums

5. Live chat / chatbots increase conversion rates and basket sizes

a. Live chat / chatbots shown to increase website conversion rates

b. Customers who engage with businesses via live chat have been demonstrated to spend as much as 60% more than non-live chat users

6. Live chat support is cheaper for businesses to offer

a. Live chat support estimated to be 15-33% cheaper to provide than traditional phone support

7. Continued shift to eCommerce increases pressure on customer support

a. North of 30% of products ordered online are returned vs. ~9% for brick-and-mortar

As a result of this financing, we will be providing the Tidio team with capital to invest in marketing / awareness, customer success, and continued product enhancement. We look forward to supporting the team in continuing their journey to become the leader in SMB customer support / engagement and we could not be more privileged to be partners with the Tidio team.

About Phil Dur

Phil has been a software investor for over 25 years and has served on the boards of over 40 growth stage companies in his career. Before co-founding PeakSpan, Phil worked at Investor Growth Capital for 10 years as a leader in the software investment team. Prior to joining IGC, Phil also worked at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners (the firm’s expansion and growth stage fund) as part of the technology investment team and started his career at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners (the firm’s private equity fund), focusing on, among other things, investments in software and other technology areas.

Phil is a graduate of Princeton University and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and also served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve for seven years. Phil enjoys cooking (trained by the Peter Kump School and L’Escoffier de Gastronomie but still a very humble student), tennis, running, and spending time with his wife and 2 children enjoying everything Northern California has to offer.

About Kyle Reitinger

Kyle joined PeakSpan in 2019 and, since his first day at the firm, has focused on PropTech and CommerceTech. He leads both of these areas for PeakSpan and has the privilege of working with over a dozen PeakSpan portfolio companies. Kyle is from Seattle, WA and is a proud University of Washington alumnus. He started his career at RBC Capital Markets, working in the firm’s Technology group in the Bay Area. Outside of PeakSpan, Kyle enjoys spending time with his wife and two dogs, cheering on the Huskies, and skiing.

About Cassie Alexe

Cassie grew up in New Jersey and is currently based in New York. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business (Go Blue), where she received her BBA and a minor in Entrepreneurship. Before joining PeakSpan, Cassie worked at multiple startups, which gave her a firsthand view into the challenges and pace of building a company from the ground up. Over the past several years, she has worked closely with founders as an investor, advisor, and board observer. Today, Cassie is a board observer at Routefusion, Boostly, Finally, and Sales Layer.

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