PubNub Closes $65 Million in Series E Investment Round

Nov 4, 2021

PubNub, the leading API platform for powering real-time connected experiences that bring people together for remote work, play, learning, and health, has raised a Series E funding round of approximately $65 million to capture increasing demand across a wide range of industries. Led by The Raine Group, with participation from firms including Sapphire Ventures, Scale Ventures, HPE, and Bosch, this financing round brings the company's total funding amount to over $130 million.

PubNub’s customers span 70+ countries and their platform powers 600 million monthly devices from users in virtually every part of the globe. Its developer-first API platform makes it easy to build and deliver apps that create Virtual Spaces where users can truly connect authentically and share real-time experiences, most notably for virtual events, enterprise collaboration, chat, rideshare/delivery, telehealth, connected fitness, gaming, and smart home products. As these products have become increasingly crucial to our daily lives, the need for redundancy, security, and global low-latency has further driven customers to PubNub’s many global points-of-presence and regulatory compliances like HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC 2 Type 2.

“PubNub’s vision is to make people’s online experiences as engaging and rewarding, if not more so, than those in the real world. This recent round of funding enables us to innovate even faster so we can quickly reach companies globally who are demanding better-connected experiences in their products,” said Todd Greene, CEO and Co-Founder of PubNub. “We are thankful and excited to have The Raine Group join our exceptional team of investors.”

Today, PubNub’s software powers innovative digital economy companies including Adobe, DocuSign, and RingCentral. “A real-time, connected, and flawless experience is key when it comes to delivering high quality livestream shows, sometimes to hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. PubNub’s developer API platform has been an important part of powering the fan interaction, bringing the crowd together in ways that are both easy to use, and innovative,” said Kyle Heller, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Veeps, a leading livestream platform that was recently acquired by Live Nation.

As part of Raine’s investment, Christopher Donini, Managing Director of The Raine Group, and Kevin Linker, Managing Partner of Raine’s Next-Gen Communications, will be joining PubNub’s Board of Directors. “We are excited to be partnering with PubNub, powering the future of real-time digital and social experiences in a world where constraints on developer time and engineering resources are placing an increasing demand for software solutions and APIs,” said Mr. Donini, “PubNub’s leading solution provides easy-to-implement reliability, security, and low-latency, which we believe solves a pervasive problem at the intersection of Raine’s global network across technology, media, and telecommunications.”

PubNub, headquartered in San Francisco, has approximately 150 employees and plans to add a team in APAC headquartered in Singapore by Q1 2022. An expanded executive team helped deliver both strong revenue growth and a 200% year-over-year increase in new customer bookings in 2021.

If you’re interested in learning more about PubNub and their plans for 2022, registration is currently open for PubNub Connect, a virtual event on November 16 and 17, where a worldwide community of developers and product leaders share how to build engaging Virtual Spaces that create authentic, online communities.

About PubNub

PubNub is transforming how people live, work and play within virtual environments. Powered by a platform to build and operate real-time interactivity within mobile, web and IOT apps, our chat, live audience engagement, geolocation and dispatch, multi-user collaboration, and other forms of real-time use cases are enjoyed by millions of people across the globe every day. Founded in 2010, over 2000 companies worldwide choose PubNub because of the speed, reliability, and scalability of our platform and because we help their customers feel more connected to one another, the brand, and the product experience.

About The Raine Group

The Raine Group is a global merchant bank focused exclusively on technology, media, and telecommunications. The firm has offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Shanghai, and Mumbai. With a global reach, Raine focuses on investment and advisory opportunities where its deep industry experience and unique network of strategic relationships can create value for portfolio companies and clients. For more information, visit http://www.raine.com.