Omilia, an advanced AI platform for call centres that makes automated customer service has raised its first venture investment of $20 million (approx €18.4 million) from Grafton Capital after bootstrapping for 18 years.
Strengthen market in North America and Western Europe!
The funding will be used to further strengthen Omilia’s direct and indirect go-to-market organisations in North America and Western Europe. Additionally, the AI platform will also invest to extend its technology footprint, in one of the few categories of AI that is already delivering significant value to large enterprises and their customers.
Offers human-like experience!
Omilia’s customer care virtual assistant uses machine learning to offer a more human-like experience. It works on all platforms – phone, web chat, social networks, SMS, email, smart speakers, and apps – and with any existing system.
Since being formed in 2002, by Dimitris Vassos (CEO and Chief Architect), Pelias Ioannidis (Partner and CFO) and John Nikolaidis (Partner and Chief Commercial Officer), Omilia’s machine learning platform have been trained on billions of interactions.
Fluent in 21 languages!
The company’s revenues grew by more than 100% in 2019, with the majority coming from its North American customer base. It is now fluent in 21 languages, including regional dialects and accents, and is the market leader in conversational intelligence.
For these enterprise customers, Omilia has improved call capacity by 43% and boosted self-service usage by 40% while reducing internal transfers by 96%, dropping call handling time, and the number of return calls by 50% and cutting costs by 20%. All of which increases customer satisfaction.
Mimic human-level conversation and understanding!
Omilia’s AI was built to mimic human-level conversation and understanding. It consists of proprietary speech-recognition software (“deepASR”), voice biometrics (“deepVB”), dialogue technology (“DiaManT”), and machine learning.
miniApps!
Running via Omilia’s Cloud Platform (OCP), “miniApps” can be instantly deployed without any coding or training. OCP miniApps are each independent, natural language components, configurable to different business rules and designed to handle single tasks.
These “miniApps” can recognise when customers are giving addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth; credit card details; arranging appointments, confirming information and offer generic multiple choice options
In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, companies worldwide have had to direct customers online in order to prioritise and manage call volumes. Yet many call centres are not equipped for home-working due to a lack of infrastructure. Omillia’s platform provides a scalable, efficient solution.
CEO Dimitris Vassos, said:
Current automated customer service technologies promise so much but deliver so little. Refreshingly, at Omilia we are not just riding the AI wave; we are delivering the advanced levels of customer care we’ve been sold for decades, at scale, and with excellent customer experience. There is no greater reward for us than to hear our users say “thank you” and “I love you” to our virtual assistants…and it happens a lot. We abandoned the legacy approaches and outdated open standards that were holding back the customer experience, and with the customer care journey at its heart, we’ve built a platform capable of human-like natural language interaction, that delivers business benefits in the real world, at scale. Comparing Omilia with current competitors is like comparing a luxury car to an engine on four wheels. Both will get you from A to B, but you would not trust the latter for a family trip with the kids.
Oliver Thomas, Managing Partner at Grafton Capital, will join Omilia’s board of directors.
Oliver commented:
“We’ve spent the past months listening to industry-leading companies around the world telling us how Omilia’s platform has transformed the performance and efficiency of their contact centre operations, whilst delighting customers. Dimitris and his team have patiently and profitably built a world-class technology platform, away from the pressures of venture financing. It is a privilege to be their first outside investor at a time when more and more enterprises are learning that Omilia’s is the only AI platform that can truly deliver conversational customer experience at scale.”
Main image credits: Omilia
Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more European technology news
01
From telecom veteran to Dutch Startup Visa success: The Jignesh Dave story