With its newest round of $28 million CAD in Series B funding, Coconut Software has raised $39.4 million to date as the startup looks to centralize the appointment scheduling needs of banks and credit unions.
Klass Capital led the latest round with participation from existing investors Information Venture Partners, ScaleUp Ventures, Conexus Venture Capital Fund, and Bay Partners.
“Many staff members have app fatigue and we want to optimize and centralize the experience.”
Financial institutions use Coconut’s software for appointment scheduling and lobby management. The SaaS startup aims to drive more customer loyalty to businesses, while providing a personalized user experience. The company’s customers include RBC Royal Bank, Arvest Bank, Vancity, and Rogue Credit Union.
Coconut plans to use the fresh funds to speed up new product launches, including that of Coconut Connect, which will allow staff and members to not only coordinate appointments but also facilitate that meeting within the Coconut platform.
“Many staff members have app fatigue and we want to optimize and centralize the experience,” Katherine Regnier, founder and CEO of Coconut Software, told BetaKit.
Coconut also plans to use the financing to hire key roles across the company, and invest in demand and revenue generation through marketing, sales, and customer success.
“The mission is to continue our high velocity momentum in the enterprise space,” Regnier added. “We are specifically focused on Banks and Credit Unions and are empowering them to deliver a modern and holistic experience to their members through appointment scheduling and lobby management. In order to do that, we need to scale our organization and add to our already amazing team.”
In 2019, the Saskatoon-based startup raised $6.5 million CAD in what the company at the time called a Series A2 round. That money flowed in two years after Coconut’s original $4.2 million Series A round in 2017.
Previously, Coconut has also received $1.75 million in debt financing from CIBC Innovation Bank, as well as $3.5 million from the federal government’s regional development agency, Western Economic Diversification Canada.
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Coconut was one of five Canadian startups chosen in 2020 to participate in the Google for Startup’s first Women Founders accelerator program.
The company made its appointment booking software available free of charge to any First Nations communities in Canada in January for the provision of COVID-19 vaccinations. The software allowed the communities to schedule, measure and manage in-person vaccine appointments, among other applications.
Coconut partnered with ebankIT in June, integrating its software with ebankIT’s omnichannel digital banking platform, and announced another, similar partnership in September with OneClick, a digital engagement platform designed to generate a personal dialog between financial institutions and their customers and members.
Regnier told ABA Bank Marketing that customer online behavior is an “indicator of the importance of appointment scheduling, noting that “41 percent of our customer appointments are booked between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.’”
Regnier told ABA that “Customers know what they want to do and don’t want to waste lunch hour waiting in a line at a bank,” adding, that Coconut has an average no-show rate of three percent for its customers compared to an industry average of 20 percent, with 40 percent of customers booking their next appointment after the end of their first.
Regnier founded the company in 2007 with a $5,000 loan. Despite being originally turned down by Information Venture Partners, who called the nine-year-old company “too early” for the VC firm at the time, Regnier has gone on to raise tens of millions of dollars, opening offices in Saskatoon and Toronto.
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The company claims 100 percent growth year-over-year for the past three years, and anticipates having 80 employees by the end of 2021.
In addition to its planned hiring spree, Coconut also recently brought on Jason Atkins, the founder and CEO of 360insights, to its board of directors. Alongside 360insights, Atkins is also a founder and principal investor in the City Flow Project, a localized Durham Region venture capital and tech investment fund, as well as a founder and chairman of Whitby, Ontario-based tech incubator 1855.
Notably, 360insights is also part of the Klass Capital portfolio.
“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Klass Capital on our Series B round,” said Regnier in a statement shared with BetaKit. “I was so impressed with their long-term approach to investing, scale and diversity of their current portfolio companies—and am fortunate to be a part of their group of best-in-class CEOs, including Jason Atkins, Founder and CEO of 360insights who we’re thrilled to have join our board.”
“The future of Coconut is changing the future of how enterprises including financial institutions engage with us as customers,” the CEO added. “Taking it from time-consuming and frustrating to effortless and on-demand.”