Toku Pte Ltd is a bespoke cloud communications and customer engagement solutions provider that reimagines customer experiences for enterprises.

Headquartered in Singapore, the company combines local expertise, regional in-country infrastructure and global reach to help businesses overcome the complexity of digital transformation in APAC markets and enhance their CX with mission-critical cloud communications solutions.

Toku works with organisations as diverse as Gojek, foodpanda, JCDecaux, Decathlon and various government agencies to move their communications to the cloud and create new ways to engage with their customers.

The company sells a portfolio of solutions including communication APIs, SDKs, cloud-based call centre software, and corporate cloud telephony backed by their own enterprise-grade telco network.

History

2018

Toku was founded in April 2018 by Thomas Laboulle, who is the CEO of the company. ^[1]

Beginning with just 7 employees, the team started developing Toku Programmable APIs ^[2] to package with Toku’s regional in-country telco network. ^[3] This hybrid solution filled a gap in the APAC market that neither local telcos nor established cloud communications players could adequately meet.

As a result the company was able to help businesses in the region accelerate their migration from traditional public switched telephone network ( PSTN) to modern digital provisioning in the cloud for their corporate telecommunications.  

2019

During this period, Toku grew fast (it expanded its team to 22 employees) and acquired more customers by combining regional telco expertise and enterprise-grade connectivity with knowledge of digital provisioning. This Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offering proved an attractive combination for enterprises struggling to overcome the complexity of digital transformation in APAC while enhancing their customer engagement. ^[4]

2020

As the Covid-19 pandemic hit Singapore and the region, businesses were forced to go digital and migrate to the cloud for all their business communications and hybrid working needs.  

Toku was able to help enterprises deal with the disruption caused by the pandemic ^[5] by offering Toku for Microsoft Teams, ^[6] a cloud-enabled solution that enables global calling capabilities for Microsoft Office 365 Teams users from anywhere, on any device.  

Significantly, this solution enabled global calling capabilities within MS Teams without having to purchase additional calling add-ons. ^[7]

2021

In September 2021, Toku raised $5 million in a Series A funding ^[8] round led by Delivery Hero-backed Delivery Hero Ventures with participation from previous investors including Tembusu Partners and Neptune Invest Asia. The company used the funding to enhance its product capabilities and coverage, so it can further serve the digital transformation needs of businesses in APAC.  

At the same time, the business added Toku Contact Centre, ^[9] an omnichannel cloud contact centre solution, to its portfolio of offerings. Soon after, they developed Toku for Zoom Phone, ^[10] a single bring-your-own-carrier (BYOC) connection enabling companies to upgrade their Zoom Phone connectivity by integrating Toku’s carrier-grade network with their current setup.  

2022

In 2022, Toku doubled down on building superior customer experiences (CX) by enhancing their core Toku Contact Centre solution with Toku for Salesforce (a Salesforce CTI). ^[11] This integration brought Toku's contact centre platform closer towards providing a seamless agent experience by enabling contact centre functionality in the CRM.  

Furthermore, the company enriched Toku Contact Centre with Toku Embeddables (their range of programmable voice and SMS APIs and SDKs that embed communication channels into an enterprise’s product). ^[12]

Using Toku’s intuitive programmable voice APIs, a business can easily integrate SIP, VoIP or PSTN calling into any business application, with provision for virtual numbers in 120+ countries. And with their programmable messaging API, businesses can quickly scale globally and send messages to over 200 countries whilst enjoying quality, hyperlocal APAC support.

In the same year, Toku was the first operator in APAC to join the AB Handshake community, a cross-industry solution allowing operators to validate the authenticity of every single call as they occur in real-time in order to fight telecommunication fraud. ^[13] By joining the community, Toku enabled their enterprise customers to benefit from top-notch cloud communications without having to compromise on their reputation or their customers’ trust.  

In September 2022, Toku released the results of its Singapore Consumer Engagement Report 2022, unveiling key insights on how consumers in Singapore prefer to interact with brands and organisations. ^[14]

And in October 2022, Toku raised $5 million in a Series A funding round extension, bringing the Series A round total to $10 million. ^[15] Delivery Hero Ventures, the venture capital branch of Delivery Hero, along with Malaysian conglomerate OSK Ventures International and venture capital firm Betatron Venture Group, co-led the extension.

To gear up for its regional growth and expansion, Toku appointed Christophe Riccardi as their first-ever Chief Operating Officer (COO) in November 2022. ^[16]

Products

• Toku Contact Centre, a bespoke omnichannel Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform built with operational efficiency in mind, tailored to the complex needs of enterprises in APAC and backed by robust carrier-grade connectivity.⁹
• Toku Programmable Voice, communication APIs that let businesses embed voice communications in their product, app or web browser. ^{[2] [17]}

• Toku Programmable Messaging, a communication API that simplifies sending and receiving messages for companies operating in APAC, with features like Verification and Authentication, Appointment Reminders, Text-to-Speech Conversion. ^{[2] [17] [18]}
• Toku for Microsoft Teams, a cloud-enabled softphone enabling global calling from anywhere, in the MS Teams console. The solution is available in two flavours - a full-featured Toku for Microsoft Teams Native Dialer, and a Toku Phone App with a basic, single interface corporate telephony feature within MS Teams. ^{[3] [7]}
• Toku for Zoom Phone, a bring-your-own-carrier (BYOC) solution that allows enterprises to upgrade their Zoom Phone connectivity and enjoy superior call quality in 15 APAC countries. ^{[10] [14] [19]}
• Toku for Salesforce, a computer telephony integration (CTI), that brings your call centre straight into Salesforce so that agents have all the details they need for their customer calls in one place. ^[11]
• Toku Campaign Manager, an all-in-one platform for businesses to send, track, and manage all their sales, marketing and operational messaging campaigns, powered by a network offering high delivery rates in APAC.

• Toku Carrier Services, the company’s enterprise-grade telco network featuring direct access to high-quality PSTN replacement in 17 countries in APAC and SMS connectivity in 15. ^[3]

References