Cloud scheduling startup, Calendly LLC announced it has raised $350 million in new funding to provide liquidity for early shareholders and employees and continue product development. This investment has now valued the company at more than $3 billion.

This funding round was led by OpenView Venture Partners, a Boston-based expansion-stage firm and existing investor, with participation from San Fransisco-based Iconiq Capital.

Founded in 2013 by Tope Awotona, Calendly simplifies the way meetings are scheduled by creating simple rules such as availability preferences, share links, or embed calendars and allows those seeking a meeting to pick a time using the service.

The platform can also be integrated with Google, Outlook, Office 365, and iCloud calendar to avoid double bookings along with automated task support linked into Salesforce, GoToMeeting, Zapier, and other services.

This new funding will be used to provide liquidity for early shareholders and employees as well as continue product innovation. It will also be used to build the platform with more tools and integrations and also expand its business with more talent.

According to Tope Awotona, “Our profitable, unique, product-led growth model has led to Calendly becoming the most used, most integrated, most loved scheduling platforms for individuals and large enterprises alike,”

This funding round is Calendly’s first since receiving $550,000 from local firm Atlanta Ventures and OpenView.

Tope also added that “While we considered outside investment an unnecessary distraction, we made the decision to partner with OpenView and Iconiq because of their insight and extended network within the tech industry. While some of the investment will add to our balance sheet, it will also be used to allow our early employees and early investors – who bet on this crazy idea years ago – to have some liquidity.”

What you should know

• In 2020, Calendly doubled its subscription revenue to $70 million and since then, the startup has grown massively despite the pandemic. It currently has more than 10 million users using it each month to streamline the way they schedule meetings, including teams at companies such as Zoom and Twilio.

Mr. Wole Oshin has been announced as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of UACN Property Development Company Plc (UPDC).

UPDC Plc has announced the appointment of Mr. Wole Oshin as the new Chairman of the company with immediate effect, following the resignation of the former Chairman, Mr. Babatunde Kasali from the Board.

The appointment was confirmed in a letter by the company dated 27th January 2021, and available on the NSE website – corporate disclosure. The letter was signed by the company’s Secretary/Legal Adviser, Mrs. Folake Kolaro, on behalf of UPDC Plc.

The announcement noted that Mr. Wole Oshin is one of the two Non-Executive Directors appointed on the 4^th of January 2021.

What you should know

• Wole Oshin is the Managing Director of Custodian Investment Plc. Mr. Oshin sits on several Boards including the International Insurance Society [IIS], New York and Nigerian Insurers Association. He is also an Advisory Board Member of the Common Wealth Enterprise and Investment Council (United Kingdom).
• UPDC is the largest real estate platform listed on The Nigerian Stock Exchange. The Company has been involved in property acquisition, development, sales and management of quality and affordable residential, commercial, and retail properties in Nigeria for over 20 years.
• In 2020, Custodian Investment PLC acquired 51% of UPDC’s issued share capital from UAC of Nigeria PLC and is now the Company’s largest shareholder.

Banks and other financial institutions have generated on behalf of the government, a total sum of N24.77 billion as Value Added Tax (VAT) in 2020, up by 44.4% when compared to N17.15 billion recorded in 2019.

This is according to the Sectoral value-added tax report, recently published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

On a quarterly basis, financial institutions generated the highest VAT figures of N7.36 billion in Q4 2020, up by 64.77% Year-on-Year. This is sequel to the sums of N5.43 billion (Q1, 2020), N5.11 billion (Q2, 2020), and N6.87 billion (Q3, 2020) generated earlier.

The growth in the generated VAT figures might be attributable to the implementation of the modified VAT structure of 7.5% which became effective on February 1, 2020.

Historical trend

The major highlight of VAT generated by the government from financial institutions and their percentage in relation to the total VAT revenue is succinctly captured below;

• In 2015, banks and financial institutions generated on behalf of the government, a total of N23.06 billion as VAT, representing 3.03% of total generated VAT across board.
• In 2016, it generated a total of N25.05 billion, representing 3.22% of the total generated VAT across board for the period under review.
• In 2017, a total sum of N20.76 billion VAT revenue was generated by the aforementioned sector, representing about 2.13% of the total VAT for the year.
• In 2018, a total sum of N18.5 billion was generated by the federal government as VAT from financial institutions, representing about 1.7% of the total VAT for the year.
• In 2019, banks remitted the total sum of N17.15 billion as VAT, representing about 1.45% of the total VAT generated across all sectors for the year.
• A total sum of N24.77 billion was generated as VAT from banks and financial institutions, representing about 1.62% of the total VAT generated across all sectors for 2020.

What you should know: Nairametrics had earlier reported that Nigeria generated N1.53 trillion VAT in 2020, up by 29% Y-O-Y.

• Nairametrics gathered that banks and other financial institutions generated the total sum of N129.29 billion as VAT between 2015 and 2020.
• Nairametrics also learnt that the sum of N24.77 billion generated by financial institutions as VAT in Q4, 2020 is the highest ever by the financial sector, since 2013.