Voice Customer Service Firm Observe.AI Raises $26 Mn in Funding led by Scale Venture Partners

Company also announces a relationship with Microsoft to bring AI-powered coaching and conversational insights to joint customers

Observe.AI, the leader in AI-powered agent enablement for voice customer service, today announce d a $26 million Series A financing led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Steadview Capital, 01 Advisors, and Emergent Ventures. This funding allows Observe.AI to expand its US-India team globally and accelerate product development.

In conjunction with the funding, Andy Vitus, partner at Scale, will be joining Observe.AI’s board. This brings the company’s total funding to $34 million.

“Legacy speech analytics systems are simply not meeting the needs of the world’s top brands,” said Swapnil Jain, CEO and co-founder of Observe.AI. “Today’s customer service agents have a unique ability to emotionally connect with customers and are often a brand’s only frontline representatives. This investment will fuel our mission to elevate agent performance through AI-based coaching and insights."

Many support teams monitor just 1-2 percent of calls and use three or more systems to access conversational insights and enable agents. Observe.AI uses the latest speech, natural language processing, and deep learning technologies to analyze 100 percent of customer conversations and provide adaptive coaching, including completely automating some parts of the quality assurance and compliance tracking processes. The platform becomes smarter with each call analysis.

"Observe.AI is already disrupting the $300 billion voice customer service market by rethinking how agents are coached and the way top brands provide personalized customer experiences,” said Andy Vitus, Partner at Scale Venture Partners.

Observe.AI also announced that it has been accepted into the Microsoft for Startups program. With this relationship, Microsoft customers can leverage Observe.AI’s platform through its Azure marketplace.

“At Microsoft, we're thrilled to see one of our Microsoft for Start-Up members excel as one of the fastest-growing startups in the Bay Area. Observe.AI continues to define how AI can transform the customer experience, impacting enterprise support teams to improve quality of service, agent performance, and productivity," said Shaloo Garg, Managing Director, Microsoft for Start-Ups.

In the past 12 months, Observe.AI has signed 100 customers and formed partnerships with leading organizations like Microsoft, Talkdesk, ERCBPO, and itelBPO. Some of the world’s largest enterprises and emerging brands use Observe.AI, including TripAdvisor, Concentrix, ClearMe, and Root Insurance. Thousands of global agents are coached with Observe.AI, which provides a detailed look at how top agents successfully structure calls so those tactics can be replicated.

“We expect to see a 4X increase in annual recurring revenue in 2020,” said Sharath Keshava Narayana, CRO of Observe.AI. “With plans to significantly expand our sales, marketing, and customer success teams over the next few months, we’re both eager and grateful to build on the momentum.”

“Observe.AI is set to transform voice customer service for the AI era. We are delighted to have partnered with them from the early days of their journey,” said Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Nexus Managing Director and Observe.AI board member.

Observe.AI, the leader in AI-powered agent enablement for voice customer service, brings coaching and conversational insights to the world’s top brands to improve the customer experience. With its Voice AI Platform, which leverages the latest Speech and Natural Language Processing technologies, organizations quality check 100% of calls, ensure compliance, and turn agents into top performers. Observe.AI is trusted by more than 100 customers and partners, including, Tripadvisor, Microsoft, ERCBPO, Talkdesk, and more. Backed by Scale Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Y Combinator, and Emergent Ventures, Observe.AI’s headquarters is located in San Francisco with an office in Bangalore.

Scale Venture Partners (@scalevp) invests in software companies that are building the Intelligent Connected World. Investments include: Bill.com, Box (BOX), Cloudhealth, Pantheon, Demandbase, DocuSign (DOCU), ExactTarget (ET), HubSpot (HUBS), JFrog, Lever, and WalkMe. Scale partners with entrepreneurs to support accelerated growth from the first customer to market leadership. Founded in 2000, Scale has over $1 billion under management and is located in Silicon Valley.

Nexus Venture Partners is a venture capital firm in US and India, focused on partnering with early-stage companies. With decades of experience in building and funding globally leading companies, Nexus manages more than USD 1.5 billion across funds. Nexus invests in companies across sectors spanning enterprise technology, consumer internet, and technology-enabled business services. Nexus backed companies include Druva, Postman, H2O.ai, Headspin, Delhivery, Kaltura, Unacademy, Snapdeal, and many other startups across US and India.

Kuliza Raises $3 Mn Funding from Silicon Valley-based PE Firm Emergent Ventures

Kuliza, a leading software company, announced today that it has received US$3 million funding led by Emergent Ventures, an active investor in category-defining enterprises and technology businesses across the globe. This funding will help Kuliza fuel R&D for its flagship product - Lend.in and assist its customers and partners better.

“We are excited to partner with Emergent Ventures and with this financial backing, we will continue to propel product innovation and transform lending for financial enterprises worldwide with our low-code platform, Lend.In. Our research and development team will achieve a new level of excellence.” said Kaushal Sarda, Chief Executive Officer, Kuliza. He also adds , “Our revenue and paying customers will enable us to strategically increase our global footprint, in this chapter of our growth story."

Aparna Sharma, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Kuliza Technologies said that “Kuliza has witnessed a massive growth in the last few quarters. “Adding several new global financial enterprise logos is a testament to our flagship product Lend.In. Our product team has also grown by over 150% to serve our growing base of customers.” She also mentioned that “We are glad to have a partner like Emergent Ventures which will pave the way to making
uliza as the preferred transformation partner of global financial enterprises"

Gaurav Jain, Chief Technology Officer, Kuliza Technologies said that "We have established a set of milestones that we seek to achieve in the coming few months. With regards to product innovation, we are looking at advancing towards a No-Code platform for financial enterprises. We will also focus on building a business user-driven lending system with unit intelligence". "At Emergent Ventures, we are always looking for entrepreneurs who are on a rapid trajectory of personal growth, which in turn sets up their companies for sustained growth. We see great potential in Kuliza which has established a strong foundation for rapid and sustainable growth.

Their products are driving significant value for their customers and Kuliza is capturing market share from incumbents." said Ankur Jain, Founder and Partner, Emergent Ventures. He mentions "Their culture, innovation and expertise gives us immense confidence about the organization. We are excited to partner with Kuliza in this new chapter."

Kuliza launched its flagship product “Lend.In” in 2017 and in a very short span of time, the low code platform became the proven choice for lending enterprises. As of today, over a billion dollars worth loans have been processed by leading financial enterprises using Lend.In. In addition, the organization has strengthened its leadership team and domain expertise by on-boarding leaders like Mr. Gangadharan Unni Kartha, Ex Global Delivery Head - Digital Payment Systems for Gemini Software and Mr Vaijinath MG, Ex-Chief General Manager of State Bank of India.

Medical Science Focused Media Startup NextGen Science Media Raises $145K Seed Funding from Singapore's Emerge Ventures

NextGen Science Media (NGSM), a start-up media venture that focuses on emerging medical science and technology trends for new-age clinicians, raised its first round of funding from Singapore-based Emerge Ventures, DC Books India and a group of individual investors. The company raised Rs 1 crore as seed capital, which will be used to develop and launch high quality medical science and news content in print and digital formats in India.

NGSM has today unveiled its maiden product -- India’s first medical science and technology news magazine, titled Future Medicine. The magazine, now available in print and digital formats will have doctors, healthcare professionals and allied medical industry as its primary audience. Dr Pratap C Reddy, Founder & Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, received the first copy of this premium monthly at an august function in New Delhi.

“Future Medicine is a uniquely positioned medical science and technology news magazine that not only enriches knowledge for Indian doctors with emerging scientific trends from across the world, but also provides a great platform for doctors, researchers and medical students to discuss and debate the latest and most relevant topics in medical science,” said Dr Reddy. He added that this magazine will help in driving greater awareness and provide latest knowledge access to India’s healthcare setup that is critically missed in our country and I am sure this will be a game changer.

In this era of innovation, medical science is getting redefined by the day. New technologies aided by robotics and artificial intelligence are fast taking over certain medical procedures where precision is crucial, while genomics and molecular science push the boundaries of our knowledge further. It is also a time when India is witnessing revolutionary growth in healthcare industry, especially in the private sector, where an increasing number of doctors are taking up multiple roles of doctor, researcher and entrepreneur. This makes it imperative for the new-age doctors and the medical community, in general to keep pace with the latest developments in the field from all over the world.

“The launch of Future Medicine marks the culmination of years of ideation and deliberations among doctors, researchers, regulators and industry stakeholders about building a single-point solution to help India’s medical community keep pace with these changes. At the same time, Future Medicine - a first-of-its-kind news magazine, upholds the strictest editorial standards and will function with complete independence,” said CH Unnikrishnan, Founder & Editor of Future Medicine, and Director, NGSM.

Conceived and crafted by a team of senior journalists, scientific writers, medical researchers and doctors, Future Medicine connects Indian clinicians with the ever-evolving science of healthcare and helps bridge the gap between research and real world medical practice, while bringing a refreshing change in the way scientific and industry information is disseminated. The scientific content of Future Medicine is thoroughly reviewed and authenticated by NGSM’s knowledge partner SGRF, one of the most credible global life sciences think tanks.

“Emerge Ventures is focused on investing in innovative and impactful ideas in the area of healthcare and life sciences. We found NGSM’s concept of enabling clinicians to keep pace with evolving medicine and science very exciting. Indian market has a dearth of medical content of high quality that Future Medicine will fulfill,” said Mahesh Pratapneni, Managing Director, Emerge Ventures Pte Ltd.

“The idea of a new media tool for medical science and industry update for clinicians and healthcare industry goes exactly in line with DC Books’ philosophy of promoting education and awareness in the areas of literature, science and management. At the same time, we are also aware of the important role that such a product can play in the market,” said Ravi Dee Cee, Chief Executive Officer, DC Books and Publisher, Future Medicine.
About NGSM

NextGen Science Media Pvt Ltd is a Bangalore-based knowledge driven media startup backed by Emerge Ventures- Singapore, DC Books India and a team of individual shareholders. The company’s key focus is to generate and disseminate high quality content on latest and emerging developments in the field of medical science and healthcare technologies as well as industry trends for the clinicians, medical researchers, students and key decision makers in healthcare management.

Via - Business Wire India

Blume Ventures To Launch ₹40 Crore Fund & Accelerator Exclusively for B2B Startups in India

Mumbai-based early-stage tech-focused venture fund, Blume Ventures (Blume), is all set to launch venture capital fund exclusively for B2B (business-to-business) startups in India. For this, Blume has partnered with two US-based venture firms - Silicon Valley-based Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV) and Emergent Ventures, who will contribute to the fund.

Blume along with its US partners will also be launching accelerator platform -- Arka Venture Labs, in India to to help facilitate global transition and faster growth of B2B startups in India.

Arka Venture Labs, which would play dual role of "a fund" as well as a "Startup Accelerator platform", will provide seed and pre-seed capital of up to $200,000 for startups in the B2B space along with mentorship, infrastructure and access to the Silicon Valley ecosystem that will be critical in scaling up B2B startups in globally developed markets.

Initially, Arka Venture Labs and the fund have a corpus of about Rs 40 crore ($6 million) and has already achieved its first close. The platform has received interest from both Indian and US-based corporates, family offices and global high-net worth individuals and then the fund's corpus may go up in amount.

As Arka Venture Labs is joint venture of an Indian and two US-based venture firms, the platform will offer capital, cross-border ecosystem linkages and access to a global customer base to those tech-focused B2B startups that work in areas of retail, supply chain, robotics as also deep technology including artificial intelligence, big data and analytics amongst others under its platform.

To be eligible for Arka platform & fund, the startups are expected to have a minimum viable product with a strong potential to scale in the US and Europe with the platform looking to enable completion of the proof of concept (POC) within 6-9 months and have at least 1-2 paying clients on board. Going forward, the three funds will enable follow-on rounds for startups under this platform.

“We help Indian enterprise startups overcome the ‘trust gap’ that exists between them and customers, investors and acquirers alike when making a global transition. We plan to make Arka Venture Labs an open and collaborative platform to bring in all the help we need to bridge this trust gap for our companies,” said Yashwanth Hemaraj, investor at BGV and one of the founding partners at Arka Venture Labs.

"Once startups in B2B space look at developed markets like US and Europe for a client base, their scale of growth and profitability get an incredible boost due to such markets’ propensity for high profit margins and lesser sales cycles. Hence, we decided to create a platform early in startups’ life cycle to enable this growth path,” said Radhesh Kanumury, managing partner of Arka Venture Labs, also advisor to Blume.

Notably, about 40% of Blume Ventures’ portfolio in India consists of B2B startups including Grey Orange Robotics, Exotel, Belong and Instamojo, among others.

In April, Blume led $1.3 million investment in BeatO, a Delhi-based tech-enabled diabetes management startup. Prior to this, it has led $1 million pre-series A round of funding of Pitstop, an after-sales car service provider, in September 2017.

Source - Economic Times

[Top Image - VCCircle.com]

Blume Ventures To Launch ₹40 Crore Fund & Accelerator Exclusively for B2B Startups in India

Mumbai-based early-stage tech-focused venture fund, Blume Ventures (Blume), is all set to launch venture capital fund exclusively for B2B (business-to-business) startups in India. For this, Blume has partnered with two US-based venture firms - Silicon Valley-based Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV) and Emergent Ventures, who will contribute to the fund.

Blume along with its US partners will also be launching accelerator platform -- Arka Venture Labs, in India to to help facilitate global transition and faster growth of B2B startups in India.

Arka Venture Labs, which would play dual role of "a fund" as well as a "Startup Accelerator platform", will provide seed and pre-seed capital of up to $200,000 for startups in the B2B space along with mentorship, infrastructure and access to the Silicon Valley ecosystem that will be critical in scaling up B2B startups in globally developed markets.

Initially, Arka Venture Labs and the fund have a corpus of about Rs 40 crore ($6 million) and has already achieved its first close. The platform has received interest from both Indian and US-based corporates, family offices and global high-net worth individuals and then the fund's corpus may go up in amount.

As Arka Venture Labs is joint venture of an Indian and two US-based venture firms, the platform will offer capital, cross-border ecosystem linkages and access to a global customer base to those tech-focused B2B startups that work in areas of retail, supply chain, robotics as also deep technology including artificial intelligence, big data and analytics amongst others under its platform.

To be eligible for Arka platform & fund, the startups are expected to have a minimum viable product with a strong potential to scale in the US and Europe with the platform looking to enable completion of the proof of concept (POC) within 6-9 months and have at least 1-2 paying clients on board. Going forward, the three funds will enable follow-on rounds for startups under this platform.

“We help Indian enterprise startups overcome the ‘trust gap’ that exists between them and customers, investors and acquirers alike when making a global transition. We plan to make Arka Venture Labs an open and collaborative platform to bring in all the help we need to bridge this trust gap for our companies,” said Yashwanth Hemaraj, investor at BGV and one of the founding partners at Arka Venture Labs.

"Once startups in B2B space look at developed markets like US and Europe for a client base, their scale of growth and profitability get an incredible boost due to such markets’ propensity for high profit margins and lesser sales cycles. Hence, we decided to create a platform early in startups’ life cycle to enable this growth path,” said Radhesh Kanumury, managing partner of Arka Venture Labs, also advisor to Blume.

Notably, about 40% of Blume Ventures’ portfolio in India consists of B2B startups including Grey Orange Robotics, Exotel, Belong and Instamojo, among others.

In April, Blume led $1.3 million investment in BeatO, a Delhi-based tech-enabled diabetes management startup. Prior to this, it has led $1 million pre-series A round of funding of Pitstop, an after-sales car service provider, in September 2017.

Source - Economic Times

[Top Image - VCCircle.com]