Yellow.ai raises $78.15 mn in Series C fundraise
Premium- The company plans to use the funding to bolster its growth and global expansion, while hiring top talent across different international regions
Bengaluru and San Francisco based Yellow.ai on Wednesday said that it has raised $78.15 million as a part of its Series C round of funding led by WestBridge Capital along with Sapphire Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures.
Existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners also participated in this round, bringing the total funds raised by the startup to $102.15 million, till date.
The current round comes a little more than a year after the company raised $20 million as a part of its Series B round led by Lighspeed.
The company plans to use the funding to bolster its growth and global expansion, while hiring top talent across different international regions. It currently has customers in India, South east Asia, Latin America and the US.
Yellow.ai wants to reach out to customers in more than 50 countries with this fund raise, targeting different global geographies in Latin America, US and Europe. It also wants to double down its presence in the North American market, and plans to hire 70 members to its team in the US.
Founded in 2016, Yellow.ai is a cloud-based enterprise solution which allows businesses to automate outreach functions such as customer support, engagement and conversational commerce through the help of chatbots and voice-led bots.
The startup’s platform at present supports more than 100 languages and can be integrated with more than 35 communication channels including WhatsApp.
“With covid, the demand for digital-led solutions and commerce has increased significantly, and the best thing to do is continue building momentum. Over the last year, we have grown by five fold in terms of our revenue run rate. With the fund raise, we will strengthen our presence in the US, and will be moving to a dual headquarter structure," said Raghu Ravinutala, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Yellow.ai.
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Currently, the startup is clocking around $18 million in annual revenue run rate (ARR). Almost 60% of its revenues come from India, while Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the US contribute to the remaining 40%.
It plans to close the next fiscal with an annual revenue run rate of $40 million, Ravinutala told Mint in an interaction.
“What impressed us the most is the speed at which customers deployed Yellow.ai for support automation and quickly scaled to commerce, HR, and other use-cases. This pattern is a testimony to the platform’s capability of creating an impact across the board thereby becoming a pivotal AI-partner," added Sumir Chadha, founder and managing partner of WestBridge Capital.
The startup has close to 950 clients at present. It is adding close to 250-300 customers every quarter, the company said.
Some of the key clientele of Yellow.ai include - Domino’s, Sephora, Hyundai, MG Motors, Bajaj Finserv, among others.
"With its enterprise-grade platform battle-tested across several hundred deployments, Yellow.ai is now continuing its growth through global expansion to North America, Latin America, and Europe," said Dev Khare, partner, Lightspeed India Partners.
Yellow.ai which was formerly known as Yellow Messenger also faces stiff competition from enterprise communication startup Gupshup, which has already rolled up close to $340 million in funding this year from the likes of Tiger Global Management.
Gupshup was also one of the recent entrants to India’s unicorn club, with investors ascribing it a valuation of $1.4 billion after its recent fundraise.
In May, Mint reported that the startup is running pilots for its bot-led conversational commerce platform called Gupshup IP, which acts as a digital storefront for brands and discovery platform for customers.
Yellow.ai states that it will also be looking to create an integrated marketplace for brands in the coming fiscals.
The company now plans to reach $100 million to $150 million in annual revenues in the next two years.
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