Telebu Communications

Introduction

Telebu Communications is a Dubai multinational technology company specialising in business solutions for marketing, customer relations, corporate communication, community engagement, employee engagement, and internal communication.

Founded as SMSCountry on April 16, 2003, by Satya Kalyan Yerramsetti, Telebu is headquartered in Dubai, UAE, and has offices in over 15 countries worldwide. From its early days as SMSCountry, the company has grown to offer diverse services beyond bulk SMS.

Telebu offers various business communication solutions, including SMS (SMSCountry), chatbots (TelebuPop), Audio and Video Conference calls (grptalk and TelebuJoin, respectively), and an integrated platform for APIs and SDKs (TelebuBlocks). There’s also instant messaging (Talk Magnet) and Contact centre software (TelebuHub).

Telebu is a privately held company backed by investors. The company has been recognised for its innovation and growth with several awards, including being named one of the top emerging companies in India by the India Emerging 20. Also, Telebu is rated as one of the best places to work on Glassdoor.

Early years

Satya, the founder of Telebu Communications, was inspired by the idea of enabling people to send SMS from any country. This inspiration led to the establishment of the company - SMSCountry in 2003. The initial focus was on providing free messaging services through their web application. As the market evolved, they identified the A2P (Application-to-Person) messaging trend as a new opportunity and decided to tap into it. In the first years of SMSCountry, it started with just two people - Satya Kalyan and Raju Kalluri. The team quickly grew, and within six months, they had eight members onboard. The company's early operations were in a small 2BHK office in Hyderabad. By 2005, the team had expanded, and around 20 people worked at SMSCountry. As SMSCountry gained momentum and success, they moved to their first corporate building in Hyderabad. Key additions to the team played a crucial role in the company's development. In 2005, Ravindra Kumar joined the team, followed by Prasanth Yerrapragada and Ramesh Thimmana in 2006, and then Sanyog and Nisha Parikh joined in 2007.

Growth

The company's services first found considerable traction within India, but later, they expanded their global reach, thanks partly to Google's search algorithm. Their presence expanded to Australia, South Africa, India, the UK, and the USA. SMSCountry continued to develop new products and features to meet market demands. They introduced various messaging solutions, such as the SMS Web app in 2003, SMS API in 2004, and an Excel plugin in late 2006.

In 2007, Telebu launched the B2C product "160by2," an ad-funded free messaging service. By 2008, Telebu launched a desktop software version of SMSCountry, their bulk SMS service. They targeted stock traders and even opened a Mumbai office for proximity. This move, combined with 160by2's success, led to a significant increase in the company's workforce, growing from 70 employees in 2007 to around 700 people by 2011, with its presence in 42 states in India and 10 international countries.

By 2012, 160by2 was acquired, and then in the same year, Telebu added more features to its messaging platform, such as the Lotus email plugin, Outlook plugin, Email to SMS, and Group messaging from Mobile. In 2012, Telebu introduced Voice SMS as a feature on SMSCountry. Then, in 2013, they ventured into the Gulf market, starting with Oman.

Telebu expanded and launched "Y Conference" in 2014 based on the voice SMS idea. Y Conference was a voice conferencing platform that eventually evolved into grptalk, the PSTN voice conferencing product, which they launched in 2017. Also, in 2017, the organisation changed its name from SMSCountry to Telebu Communications. This new identity reflects its focus on providing a more comprehensive range of telecommunication services for businesses beyond SMS. They also launched TelebuHub (popularly known as “Hub”) that same year, having started working on it in 2016. 2018 and 2019 were dedicated to research. The company started research work for video conferencing. Then, in 2020, they launched TelebuJoin - The video conferencing platform for hosting meetings and webinars. Telebu also continued to enhance features for Hub and grptalk.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, grptalk recorded 3 million monthly minutes, but during the pandemic, the platform experienced significant growth due to the increase in demand for virtual business meetings. Grptalk recorded an increase of 15 million minutes per month in conference calls in 2020.

In 2021, Telebu introduced TelebuJoin API and began developing TelebuPing - an internal messaging app for team collaboration. This tool was later rebranded as Talk Magnet and launched in 2022 as an add-on to TelebuHub. The company also focused on expanding the Hub platform by adding features like CRM and ticketing models. And in 2021 and 2022, they also focused on expanding their reach in the GCC, competing against Cisco.

In 2023, Telebu moved its headquarters from Hyderabad, India, to Dubai in the UAE. This move strengthened the company’s presence in the EMEA region, where it had operated for the past 16 years. With a diverse range of messaging and conferencing solutions, the company continues to evolve and adapt to meet the market's changing demands.

Products and Services

SMSCountry - Text & voice SMS service provider launched in 2003

Grptalk - An audio conference calling app that connects 10,000+ people on a single call without internet - 2015

TelebuHub - A single-window contact centre software for managing inbound, outbound or blended contact centre operations launched in 2019

TelebuPop - An AI live-chatbot product for automating marketing responses and providing support, launched in 2019

TelebuJoin - A video conferencing platform for hosting meetings and webinars, launched in 2020

TelebuBlocks - An integrated API platform for developers to build their solutions, launched in 2021

TelebuPing - An enterprise instant messaging platform with file sharing and audio/video call functions, launched in 2021

TalkMagnet - (formerly TelebuPing) An enterprise instant messaging platform with file sharing and audio/video call functions, launched in 2022

Telebu Social - An all-in-one communication hub enhanced business communication via WhatsApp and other social media.

References

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