London-based PolyAI, known for its customer-led voice assistants for enterprises, has successfully raised $50 million (€46 million) in a recent funding round, achieving a valuation of $500 million (€460 million). The round was led by Hedosophia and NVentures, the venture capital arm of NVIDIA, with participation from existing investors Khosla Ventures and Point72 Ventures.
PolyAI was founded in 2017 by Nikola Mrkšić, Tsung-Hsien Wen, and Pei-Hao Su, who met at the University of Cambridge’s dialog systems group, part of the Machine Intelligence Lab. Their previous work experiences at Apple, Google, and Facebook laid the groundwork for PolyAI’s advanced conversational AI systems.
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Innovative AI Solutions
PolyAI specializes in developing voice assistants capable of conducting natural conversations to solve customer problems efficiently. These assistants can understand and respond to customers regardless of what they say or how they say it. The company’s technology utilizes cutting-edge spoken language technologies, speech synthesis, and a blend of retrieval and generative AI models to provide voice-first experiences across multiple channels.
Broad Industry Applications
PolyAI’s solutions cater to various industries where customer interaction is crucial, including banking, hospitality, home services, insurance, energy, retail, healthcare, telecoms, NGOs, and public sector organizations. The voice assistants currently handle 50% of customer needs at scale, performing tasks such as call authentication, transaction completion, answering queries, making reservations, and call routing.
The company offers its voice assistants in 45 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, and Swedish. Major clients using PolyAI’s technology include FedEx, Marriott, Carter’s, and Caesars Entertainment.
Future Prospects
With this new funding, the company aims to further enhance its AI capabilities and expand its reach in the enterprise sector, continuing its mission to revolutionize customer service through innovative AI solutions.
