REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – January 31, 2022 – Cyara, a leading provider of automated customer experience (CX) assurance solutions, today announced it has received more than $350 million from K1 Investment Management (K1), a leading investment firm focused on high-growth enterprise software companies. K1’s investment and experience in business-to-business (B2B) SaaS will support Cyara’s accelerated growth, driving the expansion of the contact testing market.
Co-founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 2006 by CEO Alok Kulkarni, CTO Luan Tran and Executive Director Bonny Malik, Cyara helps its blue-chip customers build and maintain their CX systems more efficiently with automated testing and monitoring. Through its SaaS-based Automated CX Assurance Platform, Cyara has forged an early lead in the contact center testing market, estimated by Forrester to reach US $6.5 billion by 2024 1. Over 250 leading high-profile global brands trust the Cyara CX Assurance Platform to monitor and manage the experience they provide their customers.
Alok Kulkarni, CEO of Cyara said, “Cyara was founded with a vision to improve customer experience, and we’re delighted to have found a partner in K1 that is committed to the same values and wants to accelerate our growth aspirations. Organizations can succeed or fail based on their customer experience. More companies are realizing the business-critical nature of the work we do and we’re excited to have the firepower to grow and continue to attract the best people globally. We’re at the beginning of a very exciting new chapter.”
This investment is a critical step for Cyara to build upon its global leadership in the CX assurance market. The investment will be used to accelerate product innovation, expand CX assurance into new emerging digital channels, fund strategic acquisitions of complementary technologies, and fuel geographic expansion.
Roy Liao, Principal at K1 said, “Cyara provides mission critical software and is led by a visionary management team. We look forward to supporting Alok and the management team to execute on their growth strategy and further cement their position as the category leader in automated customer experience.”
Alex Kocher, Head of Technology and Assisted Channels at National Australia Bank (NAB), said, “NAB has worked collaboratively with Cyara for over 10 years. The visibility they provide, in terms of agent voice quality and connectivity issues, means we can diagnose problems before they occur. We can get ahead of any disruption to our customer experience and really support our front-line staff, wherever the agent or banker is based.”
Phillip Moore, Operations and OSS Manager, Vodafone, said, “We’re all about automation and making things easier for ourselves, which allows us to focus more attention on our customers. Cyara provides confidence that we’ve got a good service, and that when something does go wrong, we can react quickly to it before the customer knows there’s a problem. We don’t have to have someone monitoring the dashboard 24/7, we’ve got technology that’s doing that for us.”
Peakspan will continue in its capacity as a minority shareholder. Cowen acted as lead financial advisor and placement agent to Cyara on the transaction. Morgan Stanley Australia also acted as financial advisor to Cyara’s board on the transaction.
1 Forrester Market Insight Study on CFTA for Contact Centers: Market Insight Study, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Cyara, November 24, 2021
About Cyara
As the world’s leading Automated CX Assurance platform provider, Cyara accelerates the delivery of flawless customer journeys across digital and voice channels while reducing the risk of customer-facing defects. Every day, the most recognizable brands in the world trust the Cyara Platform to deliver customer smiles at scale. For more information, please visit cyara.com.
About K1
K1 is a global investment firm that builds category-leading enterprise software companies. K1 partners with strong management teams of high-growth technology businesses to help them achieve successful outcomes. With over 110 professionals, K1 and its operating affiliate, K1 Operations LLC, change industry landscapes with operationally-focused growth strategies designed to rapidly scale portfolio companies. Since inception of the firm, K1 has partnered with over 180 enterprise software companies including industry leaders such as Apttus, Buildium, Checkmarx, Clarizen, ControlUp, Emburse, FMG Suite, Granicus, IronScales, Litera Microsystems, Onit, Rave Mobile Safety, RFPIO, Smarsh, WorkForce Software and Zapproved. For more information, visit k1capital.com and follow on LinkedIn.
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As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
