User engagement platform CometChat has raised Rs 40 crore in a venture debt round led by Utah-based Zions Venture Fund. 

The funds will be used to scale its product offerings, strengthen its presence in Europe, and expand data centres in the APAC region, CometChat said in a statement.

“The aim is to raise capital for an extended runway of five years,” said Anuj Garg, Co-founder and CEO, CometChat.

Founded by brothers Anuj and Anant Garj in 2019, the Denver- and Mumbai-based startup has raised Rs over 145 crore till date. It is backed by investors including Signal Peak Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Range Ventures, and Unbound Ventures.

The communications-platform-as-a-service (CpaaS) startup works with global enterprises to give them a full-fledged messaging and communications platform within apps and websites to improve user engagement. Users can get real-time engagement and have conversations via features such as messaging, voice calling and HD video chat, said the company.

According to the firm, its tech helps enterprises save hundreds of developer hours and associated costs that companies have to otherwise spend in building their tech from scratch. 

CometChat said, in the last year, its customer base has grown three times and product usage has expanded 300%. With its B2D (business to developer) approach, it has handled over 800 million connections so far, said the company.

CometChat provides offerings such as SDKs (software development kits), APIs (application programming interface), open sourced UI kits, and widgets. It has now integrated with ChatGPT, an artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. It claims to have a strong position in North America.

The startup works in areas such as marketplaces, community apps, telehealth applications, edtech, internal messaging, and enterprise system.