Paris-based Aircall has pledged to use part of the $120m it raised in its latest funding round to expand its presence in the UK.
The cloud-based voice platform provider raised the capital in a Series D funding round, which was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Aircall has now raised more than $226m in investment and the most recent round brings its valuation to over $1bn, elevating it to ‘unicorn’ status.
The company will use the latest funding to invest in expanding its UK footprint, including opening a London office by the end of 2021 and engaging with the UK channel. It intends to form “strong” partnerships with resellers and other channel players in the UK and to partner with major telecoms companies.
“Since the beginning of Aircall, we’ve helped thousands of companies to enrich their customer experience through voice channels, with more empathy than ever in the past year. We also witnessed an increasing demand for visibility and data about teams and performances,” stated Olivier Pailhes, co-founder and CEO of Aircall.
“Now that hybrid, on-site or remote teams are likely here to stay, we’ll continue to work to achieve our vision, and empower every professional to have richer conversations. With that in mind, the investment by Goldman Sachs, and the renewed trust of our current investors validates this vision.”
The voice specialist will also use the latest investment to develop its app ecosystem, improve tech with new AI capabilities, and additional productivity features for call centres.
Founded in 2014, Aircall’s growth relies “heavily” on internationalisation, with the US generating over a third of its revenue. It has offices in New York, Paris, Sydney, and Madrid. It boasts a headcount of 450 and expects to add more than 260 new employees by the end of this year.
It provides an easy-to-use phone system that can integrate with other critical business applications and support the communication needs of a distributed workforce. It has met customers’ needs this past year by integrating its cloud-based solution into software such as Salesforce, Slack and Zendesk.
Despite the events of the past year, Aircall achieved record-breaking growth across its business, seeing a 65 percent year-on-year increase in total customer growth and reaching 8,500 customers worldwide.
Christian Resch, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, said, “The past 12 months have been a catalyst for Aircall’s cloud-based SaaS communication solution.
“In a hybrid work environment, users are looking to Aircall to provide an easy to use experience that is highly integrated into their workflows, thereby making the most out of every customer interaction. We are very excited to partner with Aircall, as the company looks to accelerate its growth and expand globally.”
Kirk Lepke, Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, added: “We have been following Aircall’s journey for some time and are delighted to be partnering with Olivier and the Aircall team to lead the Series D. The company has tremendous momentum within a huge category and a differentiated product strategy that will sustain significant growth for many years to come.”
