Softline Seed Fund, a joint investment vehicle formed by the state fund of funds RVC and software publisher Softline, has invested an undisclosed amount in WhatsHelp. Founded in 2016, this Russian startup is developing sales and CRM solutions for mobile messengers and social networks, now available in Beta version.
“We have an ambitious plan to expand to Asia and Latin America,” said WhatsHelp’s CEO Dmitry Chistov.
“Softline’s support is very important to us, since this group is a leading international service and solution provider in the field of IT,” he added.
In October 2016, immediately after inception, the startup raised $80,000 in the form of a convertible loan from Russian business angels Pavel Cherkashin, Alexandr Boikov and Sergey Dashkov. The deal valued Whatshelp at $1 million, reports industry blog Firrma.
Unsatisfactory ROI
Commenting on the deal, Prostor Capital Managing Partner Alexey Solovyov noted that the world market is packed with CRM projects, making it difficult for WhatsHelp to compete. He expressed some scepticism about exit prospects in Russia: investors are unlikely to exit from such a project successfully, he told Firrma.
“All the 2010-2012 projects which aimed to make communication with clients faster and more efficient failed, and their investors never had a satisfactory return on investment,” he added.
Softline Seed Fund was established in late 2013 by RVC and Softline Venture Partners (SVP), the corporate fund of the Softline group, with 136 million rubles (a little more than $4 million at that time) as an initial amount of funds under management. The fund received an additional 102 million rubles (some $1.5 million at that time) from its backers in late 2015..
Sources: Softline Seed Fund, Firrma.ru
