Beaconstac Raises $25 Million to Connect Physical CX to Digital
Beaconstac, the provider of a QR code customer engagement platform, raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Telescope Partners, an early-growth investor in entrepreneurs building enterprise software companies, with additional participation from existing investor and venture capital (VC) firm Accel.
The new funding will enable Beaconstac, which has offices in New York City and Bangalore, India, to build a team and develop its platform further, ultimately enabling new and existing customers to adopt QR codes as a means to create personal connections with a wide audience at scale, bridging CX in the physical world to digital.
The funding underscores the strong market demand from businesses for Beaconstac’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, resulting in revenue growth last year of 200% compared to a year earlier. In the past 12 months, Beaconstac helped businesses of all sizes create and track 1.8 million QR codes that were scanned more than 150 million times by consumers. The figures will continue to accelerate as the number of unique US smartphone users scanning a QR code is poised to reach 99.5 million by 2025, according to the company.
Akia Raises $6 Million to Scale Automation Technology
CX automation firm Akia raised $6 million in Series A funding to scale its automation technology and help businesses manage the ongoing labor shortage. VC firm Altos Ventures led the financing, with additional participation from GSR Ventures, which had led a previous seed round.
Operating primarily in the hospitality industry, Akia’s customer engagement platform can automate and streamline operations for service businesses, helping to eliminate paperwork and drive engagement. Its Mini Apps, described by the company as “mobile experiences” that do not require downloading or logging in, and provide better usability and accessibility than native apps.
Revenue for San Francisco-based Akia has grown annually by a factor of three since the company launched in 2019. The new round of funding is a validation of the company’s vision of developing products and services that help businesses respond quickly and more effectively to the changing needs of its customers, Akia executives say.
Inbenta Secures $40 Million in Funding
Inbenta, the Dallas-based conversational AI platform provider, has closed a $40 million investment led by Tritium Partners that will fund future product innovation at Inbenta and its expansion into new markets.
Designed to optimize CX, Inbenta automates customer interactions with intelligent conversational AI. Requiring virtually zero data training and achieving a 90% correct answer rate, the solutions from Inbenta are fully configurable, deployable within seconds, interoperable across multiple platforms, and perpetually advancing through billions of customer interactions across 35 languages.
By applying Inbenta’s AI-driven conversational tools, companies can automate the resolution of customer inquiries and tasks, reduce the need and cost associated with human intervention, and create an always-on channel for customer service, sales, human resources (HR) and revenue growth.
Capacity Acquires Textel to Enable Businesses with Conversational AI in SMS
Capacity, the provider of an AI-powered support automation platform, is acquiring cloud-based texting platform Textel. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition will allow Capacity to enhance end user CX by expanding its capabilities to include AI-powered SMS business texting features.
With text rapidly becoming a vital element of the customer service experience and being prioritized by businesses, Capacity and Textel together will optimize CX by extending an AI-enabled, two-way SMS feature to the Capacity customer base, introducing AI and automation into Textel offerings.
While Capacity and Textel both worked toward helping businesses provide improving levels of support, the two companies will now function as one team to bring its capabilities to a growing number of companies and industries that wish to transform customer support, including contact centers, high-growth companies, and small businesses.
Textel will operate as a subsidiary of Capacity and will remain headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, working with more than 1,700 customers.
PartnerHero Acquires SupportOps
PartnerHero, the provider of outsourced customer operations, has acquired SupportOps, an advanced implementation partner of Zendesk and a provider of customer relationship management (CRM) implementation services.
Financial terms of the transaction are not known, but the deal combines PartnerHero’s reputation for unparalleled quality with SupportOps’ expertise in CRM administration. With the acquisition, PartnerHero will immediately begin offering Zendesk implementation and administration services through the SupportOps brand.
Headquartered in the New York metro area, SupportOps is a leader in the Zendesk services space and has completed custom Zendesk configuration, automation, and theme development for more than 100 businesses. For its part, Boise, Idaho-based PartnerHero is known for providing quality global outsourced CX services and a generative, uplifting values-based approach in the business process outsourcing industry.
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
