Weeks after raising $100M, investors pump another $180M into hot Indian startup MoEngage

MoEngagea customer engagement platform used by consumer brands in 75 countries has raised $180 million in a follow-on Series F round just over a month after raising $100 million, with the majority of the latest funding providing liquidity to investors and employees through secondary transactions.

In the latest raise, approximately $123 million was secondary, including a $15 million workforce procurement that provided liquidity to 259 current and former employees, while the remaining $57 million was raised as primary capital and went to the company. The round was led by ChrysCapital and Dragon Funds, with participation from Schroders Capital and existing investors TR Capital and B Capital. Early backers, including Eight Roads Ventures, Helion Venture Partners, Z47 and Ventureast, sold shares in the secondary transactions.

The deal valued MoEngage at “well above” $900 million post-money, per person close to the deal, who added that the startup was targeting $100 million in annualized recurring revenue this year. MoEngage has not disclosed these figures.

MoEngage plans to use the new capital to further invest in its Merlin AI suite and expand the use of AI agents to improve decision-making and efficiency for marketing teams, Raviteja Dodda (pictured above), co-founder and CEO, said in an interview. The startup is also making deeper inroads into product and engineering teams by bundling its analytics and transactional messaging tools into a broader offering, a move expected to increase average contract values ​​and expand its addressable market.

“When you look at customer engagement, it’s not necessarily focused on marketing teams. There are product and engineering teams, which are also focused on understanding customer behavior and data,” Dodda said.

MoEngage also plans to use some of its new capital raise to pursue strategic acquisitions, especially in the US and Europe, and target software companies that complement its customer engagement platform or help accelerate its expansion in those markets. It is also targeting small AI teams to strengthen its intelligence-based offering.

The 11-year-old startup, which has its headquarters in Bengaluru and San Francisco, already generates more than 30% of its revenue from North America, around 25% from Europe and the Middle East, and the remaining 45% from India and Southeast Asia.

MoEngage’s secondary-heavy raise structure reflects its late-stage position, allowing early investors and employees to absorb liquidity without forcing the company into a public listing anytime soon. This approach gives MoEngage the flexibility to choose next steps based on business priorities rather than investors’ exit timelines.

“It gives us the opportunity to have no urgency regarding an IPO,” Dodda said, adding that the startup still aims to go public in a few years, depending on market conditions and other factors.

MoEngage expects to turn earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) positive this quarter and is targeting compound annual growth of about 35% over the next three years, Dodda said.

Bhavin Turakhia, co-founder and CEO of fintech company Zeta, a MoEngage customer, said the startup’s analytics and messaging tools have helped improve onboarding, activation and cross-sell across key customer journeys.

The secondary component of the round also allowed some early investors to withdraw completely. Ventureast, which MoEngage backed in 2018, is one of them. The VC firm made about a 10x return on its investment on a blended basis, partner Vinay Rao told TechCrunch.

Rao said while many global customer engagement companies operate with cost structures focused on the US market, MoEngage has retained an India-based cost structure, which he said has helped it compete more effectively in the US while scaling the business.

With the latest round, MoEngage has raised approximately $307 million in primary funding to date.