Malaysia's AI agent-powered messaging app Respond.io raises $62.5M, eyes acquisitions | TechCrunch

Last day to exhibit your breakthrough to 10,000+ tech leaders at Disrupt is on Oct 2. Book Exhibit Table Now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. In 2017, Respond.io set out to solve a simple problem: Businesses couldn’t keep up with customers who had moved to messaging apps. Today, Respond, with its customer conversation management software, has become one of the tech success stories of Malaysia. The startup, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, has raised a $62.5 million Series B round led by Camber Partners, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst and existing investors. It last raised a $7 million Series A in 2022. The company has grown to $35 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), growing 169% year-over-year, at a 30% profit margin, it tells TechCrunch. Co-founder and CEO Gerardo Salandra, who worked at IBM and Google before joining Runtastic, a fitness tracking app that was sold to Adidas in 2015, founded Respond in Hong Kong in 2017 alongside Hassan Ahmed (CTO) and Iaroslav Kudritskiy (COO). The team relocated the business to Malaysia two years later. The platform helps mid- to large-sized B2C businesses drive revenu