Observe.AI raises $8 M Series A funding led by Nexus Venture Partners

California-based AI startup Observe.AI has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from MGV, Liquid 2 Ventures, Hack VC and existing investors Emergent Ventures and Y Combinator.

Founded in May 2017 by Akash Singh, Sharath Keshava, and Swapnil Jain, Observe.AI empowers call centre agents to do their jobs better. Its voice AI platform provides the agent with real-time feedback on customer sentiment and guides them on the next best action during a customer call.

The AI platform listens to the call stream in real time, uses deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to understand the context and generates suggestions and guidance for the agent.

Observe.AI has an office in Bengaluru, India.

The company recently partnered with Talkdesk to launch its voice AI platform for Talkdesk customers. Talkdesk is a cloud-based contact centre software provider that empowers companies to make customer experience a competitive advantage.

Observe.ai early this year raised seed capital of $1million and $120,000 from Emergent Ventures and Y Cordinator respectively.

Swapnil Jain, founder and CEO of Observe.AI, says, “We are using the power of AI to make that voice conversation even more delightful by equipping the customer support agent with the tools needed while the call is going on. The agent no longer needs to place customers on hold, or transfer them around; continuous engagement is established until a successful resolution is reached. Our agent-first approach is all about making the job of the agent easier which translates into better productivity and higher customer satisfaction.”

According to a report by Radiant Insights, global outsourced customer services market is projected to reach $84.7 billion by 2020. Another study says that companies lose more than $62 billion due to poor customer service. Other prominent players that use AI in the customer service industry includes Neva.ai and DigitalGenius among others.

Ram Gupta, managing director of Nexus Venture Partners, said, “Companies have been actively discouraging their customers to call their agents for the last two decades because of increasing costs even though it is a natural way for humans to get help. With recent advances in deep learning and NLP, which will dramatically increase the productivity of agents, call centres are ready to become the first port of contact again for customer service.”