Conversica Lands $34M to Expand Conversational AI

Conversica, a provider of AI-based lead engagement software for sales and marketing announced last week that it has secured $34 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round.

The round was led by Providence Strategic Growth Capital Partners L.L.C. (PSG), with participation from Toba Capital, Wellington Financial LP and Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., as well as additional funding from existing investor Kennet Partners and founder Ben Brigham.

“Applying data science techniques to machine-human interactions is an area where we are seeing incredible growth and innovation, and we’ve spent considerable time looking for the right company in which to invest,” said Toba Capital founder Vinny Smith.

Conversica’s board of directors has been expanded to include PSG Managing Director Gopi Vaddi and Toba Capital Partner Wilder Ramsey.

“The Conversica team has developed a unique and powerful way to solve a ubiquitous business problem, enabling sales and marketing organizations to automatically engage, qualify and follow up with their leads to more effectively turn them into customers,” said Alex Terry, CEO of Conversica.

Conversica will use the new funding to expand marketing and sales efforts, support ongoing product development and finance the continued growth of the company. The company has achieved commercial success with its flagship AI Sales Assistant, including:

• Reaching over 16,000 users at over 1,000 companies
• Sending and receiving over 180 million emails and SMS messages through its Conversational AI platform to build one of the largest AI training data sets in sales and marketing communications
• Generating a 35% lead response rate, over 8X higher than typical marketing emails, via fully autonomous AI-powered conversations.

Conversica’s customers include Fortune 500 companies such as IBM and Epson, high-growth companies such as Talend and Cake (a Sysco company) and small businesses such as SelectQuote and Coolfront. Customers use the Conversica AI service to engage and qualify their sales prospects using natural, two-way human conversations, which looks to help their sales teams spend more time closing business.

“Conversica’s AI technology has helped IBM be smarter about engaging our prospective customers and maximizing their value as they move through our sales funnel,” commented Kevin Pollack, head of IBM’s Global Email Marketing Practice.

In addition to its flagship Sales Assistant, Conversica has used its conversational AI platform to develop AI-powered assistants that automate business conversations, including customer lifecycle management in the automotive industry, customer success management in the software industry and loan processing in the financial services industry.

“Conversica's powerful language processing, analytical and machine learning capabilities and product vision are expected to continue to drive the company into conversational areas that have yet to be touched by AI,” said Gopi Vaddi of PSG.

“The use of Intelligent Assistants for sales, marketing and customer support is exploding, and Conversica is a leader in these early days of Conversational Commerce,” commented Dan Miller, Lead Analyst and Founder at Opus Research.