Korawad Chearavanont () is a Thai entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Amity, formerly known as Eko, an enterprise communications app headquartered in

Bangkok, Thailand Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

Biography

Chearavanont is the son of

Suphachai Chearavanont Suphachai Chearavanont (, ; zh, 謝榕仁; 24 March 1967) is a Thai businessman, and CEO of C.P. Group, a multinational conglomerate owned by his father. Also chairman of telecommunications company True Corporation, of which he was the CEO fr ...

, CEO of

Charoen Pokphand The Charoen Pokphand Group Company, Ltd. (CP) (; ) is a Thai conglomerate based in Bangkok. It is Thailand's largest private company and the largest privately held Royal Warrant holder of the Thai Royal Family. The company describes itself as hav ...

Group, Thailand's largest private company where his grandfather

Dhanin Chearavanont Dhanin Chearavanont (; ; born 19 April 1939), known in Chinese as Xie Guomin, or Chia Kok Min in Teochew (, Peng'im: ''zia7 gog4 min5'' ), is a Chinese-Thai billionaire businessman, based in Bangkok. He is the senior chairman of Charoen Pokphand, ...

currently serves as senior chairman. He was educated at the

Lawrenceville School The Lawrenceville School is a Private school, private, coeducational College-preparatory school, preparatory school for boarding and day students located in the Local government in New Jersey, unincorporated community of Lawrenceville, New Jers ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

for two years, where he was a history major, before leaving in 2015 to pursue a career in entrepreneurship.

Amity

In 2012, Chearavanont founded Amity (previously known as Eko Communications) as a mobile chat app, taking a year off from boarding school to do so. After living in Princeton, NJ during a gap year and wanting to focus on Amity, Chearavanont made a deal with his family that he could quit college if he raised at least $5 million for his company, which he was able to do after initially raising a seed round from Tigerlabs Ventures which was quickly followed by a Series A funding through investors such as

500 Startups 500 Global (previously 500 Startups) is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, Californ ...

, Gobi Ventures, and

Itochu is a Japanese corporation based in Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka and Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo, Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo. It is one of the largest Japanese ''sogo shosha'' (general trading and investment companies) distinguished by the strength of its textil ...

. The Series B funding round led by

Sinar Mas Sinar Mas is one of the largest conglomerates in Indonesia. It was formed in 1938. It has numerous subsidiaries including Asia Pulp & Paper and palm oil producer PT SMART. The company also acquired Berau Coal Energy from Asia Resource Minerals ...

Digital Ventures raised $20 million, with investors such as

Air Asia Capital A Berhad (), operating as AirAsia (stylised as ''airasia'') is a Malaysian multinational low-cost airline headquartered near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Established in 1993 and commencing operations in 1996, the airline is the largest in ...

’s digital investment fund and EV Growth, giving a total amount of $28.7 million by 2019. Chearavanont stated that the enterprise collaboration market “is really open right now” when discussing the many competitors like Slack,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. Notable clients of Amity include companies such as

Bangkok Bank Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited (, Royal Thai General System of Transcription, RTGS: Thanakhan Krung Thep) is one of the largest commercial banks in Thailand. Its branch network includes over 800 branches as of May 2024, within Thailand, wit ...

Thanachart Bank Thanachart Bank Public Company Limited (TBank) () was a bank headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. It commenced operations on 22 April 2002 with Thanachart Capital PCL (TCAP) as its parent company. In 2018, it was Thailand's sixth-largest bank in ...

BEC-TERO Tero Entertainment Public Co. Ltd., formerly known as BEC-Tero Entertainment and World Media Supply is a mass media and entertainment company in Thailand. It organizes and promotes concerts, owns record labels and produces films and television s ...

True Corporation True Corporation Public Company Limited (stylized as true) is a communications conglomerate in Thailand. It is a joint venture between Charoen Pokphand Group and Telenor, formed by the merger between the original True Corporation and DTAC in t ...

, and

Telekom Malaysia Telekom Malaysia Berhad or simply TM is a Malaysian telecommunications company that was founded in 1984. Beginning as the national telecommunications company for fixed line, radio, and television broadcasting services, it has evolved to become ...

. There are currently approximately five million active users across Asia, Europe, and North America. In June 2020, Amity acquired local AI chatbot firm, ConvoLab, and formed a new parent firm, changing its name from Eko to Amity, as part of its expansion plans.

Accolades

In 2016, Chearavanont was listed on "Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia" under the Enterprise Tech category.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chearavanont, Korawad Korawad Chearavanont Korawad Chearavanont Lawrenceville School alumni Columbia University alumni Living people Korawad Chearavanont Year of birth missing (living people)