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Clickatell plans IPO to fund expansion

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Clickatell, which helps companies communicat­e with customers via mobile messaging platforms, is considerin­g a public offering next year as it seeks to fund a rapid expansion of its services, founder and CEO Pieter de Villiers said yesterday.

Clickatell, which was founded in South Africa but is now based in California, could seek to list on a US exchange, he said.

The company initially used mobile phone SMS messaging to enable its clients to communicat­e directly with their customers.

It is now partnered with Facebook’s WhatsApp Business platform to provide services ranging from online customer service to distributi­on of real-time flight informatio­n to mobile banking.

“The markets around us are growing fast.

It makes sense for us to do capital raising in 2019, maybe in (the first and second quarters),” de Villiers told Reuters in a telephone interview.

He said the company — which also has offices in South Africa, Canada and Nigeria — had not yet taken a final decision on whether to go public or fundraise via a private placement.

“We could certainly list in the US provided we felt that the company would get enough attention given market cap and size,” he said. “I think private equity is also still very much an option for the business given the momentum we’ve got.”

As a private company, Clickatell does not publish financial results, but de Villiers said it has turned a profit every year since 2009 and is on track for yearon-year revenue growth of more than 30% this year. “We’ve had double- digit growth for quite some time.

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