• by Ray Schultz , March 1, 2021

Conversational text platform Emotive has snared $50 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total valuation to $400 million.

The round was led by CRV, with participation from existing investors Mucker Capital, TenOneTen Ventures, and new investors, Stripes and Vulcan Capital.  

The company will use the money to accelerate its go-to-market strategy, invest in its platform, and launch new products.

Last May, Emotiv closed a Series A round led by Mucker Capital.

Emotive tripled the size of its workforce in 2020 and will triple again this year to a total of over 200 employees. 

In addition, it appointed Adam Waid, Formerly of SalesLoft and Salesforce, as chief customer officer and Oleg Pylnev, previously of Honest Company and SpaceX, as chief technology officer.

Also named were Joe Cuccinelli, formerly of Drift, as vice president of product; Brent Dougherty, previously with Justworks and ZocDoc as vice president of sales; and Ben Peterson, formerly of Machine Zone, as vice president of finance.

The company apparently seeks to supplant email. 

“Our inboxes are under assault and the smartphone is increasingly our de facto Internet access device of choice,” states Murat Bicer, general partner at CRV. 

“In a competitive world chock full of choices, brands that want to authentically connect with customers have to evolve and go where discussions are happening and that’s not always in inboxes,” Bicer says.