Exotel raises $35 million in Series C funding
1 min read 29 Sep 2021, 12:14 PM ISTExotel will use part of the fundraise to finance its recent merger with call center cloud software provider Ameyo.
PremiumBENGALURU : Cloud telephony platform Exotel has raised $35 million as part of its Series C funding from IIFL AMC, Sistema, CX Partners, and Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund.
Arun Sarin, former chief executive officer (CEO) of Vodafone, has also joined the round as an angel investor and mentor. Existing investors Blume Ventures and A91 Partners have also participated in this round, the company said in a statement.
According to Exotel co-founder and chief executive, Shivakumar Ganesan, the company will use part of the fundraise to finance its recent merger with call center cloud software provider Ameyo.
The company will also look to utilize the capital to explore growth through organic and inorganic routes, as well as to boost its product offerings.
In June, Exotel and call centre software provider Ameyo announced their merger. The combined entity will focus on building a full stack customer engagement platform in emerging markets to accelerate communication to the cloud and providing conversational artificial intelligence capabilities for improved customer experience.
“Almost 35%-40% of the current fundraise will be used to provide shareholder exits for the Ameyo merger. We will also be utilizing the funds to accelerate our growth through organic and inorganic routes, and will look at making certain acquisitions. We will continue doubling down on core markets of India and Southeast Asia, while focusing on geographies including the US, Middle East and Europe," said Ganesan, in an interaction with Mint.
Ganesan also added that in terms of product capabilities, the company is focused on building a public cloud contact centre in the country, and will continue investing to build a customer data platform along with artificial intelligence-led bots.
“This is a step in the right direction that allows Exotel to invest further in bringing seamless customer engagement on the cloud to emerging geographies. The convergence of customer data coupled with conversational AI capabilities will enable enterprises to monitor conversations, build smarter bots and assist customer service teams in realtime," said Sachin Bhatia, chief executive of Ameyo.
Exotel is looking to hit an annual revenue run rate of $200 million over the next five years and is planning to increase its headcount by 200 over the next 12 months. It is also in talks to raise another round to finance its growth in the coming months.
Currently, the company claims to work with over 6,000 companies across India ​​and other international geographies.
