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Press Release -- December 16th, 2024
Source: gigs
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Gigs Raises $73 Million To Enable Tech Companies To Launch Their Own Mobile Service

  • Ribbit Capital, known for backing such global fintech pioneers as Coinbase, Nubank, Robinhood, and Brex, led the round.

  • With the latest funding, Gigs cements its position as the go-to platform for tech companies seeking to embed mobile services into their offerings.

SAN FRANCISCO, 12th of December 2024 – Gigs, the operating system for mobile services, today announced that it has raised a $73M Series B led by Ribbit Capital. All existing investors, including Google’s Gradient, YC and Speedinvest, participated in the round. Gigs will use the funding to expand its geographical footprint and invest in an expanded suite of products and services for tech companies. This will enable more tech brands to meaningfully innovate in telecom, provide more value to their customers, and tap into a new recurring revenue stream.

The Walled Garden Of Telecom

Before Gigs, high barriers to entry kept the telecom industry closed-off to innovators. New entrants faced years of tough commercial negotiations with carriers and had to pour tens of thousands of engineering hours into navigating the messy patchwork of single-purpose vendors with archaic, fragmented operating systems. Engineering teams had to wrestle with clunky, unstable and inconsistent APIs from multiple carriers—like building tech from the early 2000s—all just to enter one market.

On top of that, businesses were forced to commit more than $100 million upfront in order to achieve competitive rates from networks and get priority network access, all before selling a single subscription. These operational and capital expenses were hard to recoup and tied businesses to network-specific investments, ultimately hampering scalability and eroding margins.

Even businesses capable of managing these burdens still faced the slow and bureaucratic processes of carriers, which hindered their ability to optimize in the long-run. Moreover, any plans to expand internationally required repeating the entire effort with each network operator—an untenable challenge for technology platforms that don’t consider telecom their core business.

As a result, the internet economy lacks the infrastructure and tools to connect to the global telecom grid, something tech companies take for granted in areas like hosting and payments.

Democratizing Access To The Mobile Service Market

Gigs is radically democratizing access to the mobile service industry. The company’s mission is to reduce the cost of setting up a mobile service in one or multiple markets, as well as lowering operational and service costs to near zero. Without Gigs, it would take new entrants to the mobile service market years to develop and refine their service.

The company’s operating system empowers tech players to launch their own mobile service on premium networks globally within weeks, all through a single integration—eliminating the need to hire large teams of telecom engineers, navigate compliance hurdles, or manage multiple vendors and platforms. By providing everything you need to launch your own mobile service in one platform—including premium wholesale connectivity, a best-in-class connectivity API, a hosted checkout, a multi-currency payments suite, a tax engine, a subscription and analytics platform, and AI-powered customer service—Gigs removes the complexity, time-to-market, and costs for tech brands wanting to embed their own mobile services into their digital products and services.

To ensure customers maintain a competitive edge and operate state-of-the-art services with the highest customer satisfaction and lowest cost to serve globally, Gigs continuously productizes every aspect of its business and automates every customer support ticket. For the first time, this makes telecommunications accessible to tech companies that expect to work with modern tools and high-performance platforms.

Hermann Frank, co-founder and CEO at Gigs: “We believe that getting a phone plan should be as easy as ordering an Uber, not as complicated as leasing a car at a  dealership. The truth, however, is that phone plans are stuck in the past: analog, uniform, and, frankly, unloved. Extremely high barriers to entry have kept innovation out of the industry for too long. Now, the world’s leading product companies can bring this innovation to their users. Gigs breaks down these hurdles by empowering any tech company to distribute phone plans directly through their apps, transforming connectivity from a standalone commodity into a core, customizable feature of every digital product experience. Ribbit has a proven track record of upending markets burdened by incumbent lethargy. We were impressed by the team’s vision so when the offer came to lead our Series B, it felt very natural to lean in.”

Dennis Bauer, co-founder and President at Gigs: “Since our launch in 2020, Gigs has significantly increased its annual recurring revenue, cementing its position as one of the fastest-growing B2B companies globally. Leading tech brands with large, highly engaged audiences—ranging from high-growth neobanks like Nubank and Wealthsimple to major HR platforms, travel companies and phone manufacturers—are leveraging Gigs’ connectivity platform to integrate phone plans into their core services, delivering unique and seamless product experiences. With exciting new product launches and lighthouse customer announcements in 2025, Gigs is set to inspire even more innovative tech companies to launch their own mobile services.”

Jordan Angelos, General Partner at Ribbit Capital: “Mobile connectivity, like banking, is one of the most widely used consumer services globally. Yet, it consistently ranks among the lowest in customer satisfaction. Gigs is seizing a once-in-a-decade opportunity to revolutionize the $1T+ annual mobile subscription market, empowering innovators and trusted brands to digitize and enhance customer experiences, with phone plans serving as the ultimate superglue. We are impressed by the team’s vision, execution, and global momentum, and we’re excited to partner with them on this journey.”

About Gigs

Gigs, the operating system for mobile services, empowers tech companies to seamlessly embed connectivity into their offerings in weeks. By bundling phone plans and travel data with their core services, Gigs’ customers can increase stickiness and unlock a new recurring revenue stream with digital mobile experiences that meaningfully create value to consumers. Gigs’ end-to-end platform provides everything brands need to launch and operate their own multi-market mobile service: premium wholesale connectivity, a hosted checkout, billing, subscription management, analytics, and AI-powered customer service. Backed by Ribbit Capital, Google, Y Combinator, Speedinvest, BoxGroup and others, Gigs was founded by Hermann Frank and Dennis Bauer in 2020 and now employs over 90 people across the US and Europe. For more information, visit gigs.com.

About Ribbit
The mission of Ribbit Capital is to transform the world of finance by backing visionary entrepreneurs. For over a decade, Ribbit has partnered with founders challenging the status quo to make money more transparent and accessible around the world. Ribbit has invested in exceptional teams across six continents, including at Brex, Bridge, Chainalysis, Coinbase, Coalition, Credit Karma, Fireblocks, Groww, Imprint, NEXT Insurance, Nubank, ONE, Parafin, Razorpay, Revolut, Robinhood, and others.

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