HR Tech Firm Xref Acquires Employee Engagement Outfit Voice Project
Sydney, Australia-based HR tech platform provider Xref has acquired fellow Australian and employee engagement technology company Voice Project in a move that will enable the combined entity to contend with incumbent unicorns through a newly complete hire-to-retire solution for employers.
Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed, but the acquisition is projected to drive Xref revenue forward by $4 million, increase its global headcount from 85 to 100, and provide the 944 clients of Voice Project with access to the Xref suite of products. Similarly, Xref will be able to introduce Voice Project services to its 1,300 enterprise clients and 15,000 users.
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Xref is the provider of a global reference checking and identity verification platform, while Voice Project is the developer of a full suite of data-driven customer engagement surveys and a series of industry benchmarks that allow companies to compare their service quality to peers for continuous business improvement.
With the acquisition, Xref will now proceed to integrate Voice Project surveys into its own Xref Engage platform, enabling employers to view all available information on a worker—a prospective hire, employee, or ex-employee—in one place while also helping identify any actionable insights for deployment.
Frame AI Gets $7.6 Million for AI-Driven Customer Intelligence Platform
Frame AI, the New York City-based provider of an AI-driven platform for customer intelligence, was the recipient of $7.6 million in an oversubscribed funding round led by venture capital (VC) firm G20 Ventures, with participation from other VC investors FirstMark and Greycroft. The round also attracted majority participation from new institutional investors Velvet Sea Ventures and ValueStream Ventures, along with strategic investors Twilio and LiveRamp.
The new funding will be used to expand sales and to deepen Frame’s differentiated capabilities in combining natural language and event data to better understand customer journeys. Frame AI is a next-generation customer intelligence system that uses AI to estimate costs and predict revenue outcomes associated with complex customer interactions.
Related Article: M&A Update: Funding for AI-Related Tech and New Acquisitions
A new product offering, Dynamic Cost Attribution, combines budget information with AI analysis of support communication and lifecycle events to identify the drivers of operational costs. The solution allows leaders to attach a true dollar figure to the unique drivers of spend in their customer operations, while the rest of the Frame platform automates solutions to resolve those inefficiencies.
Parisian Startup Popwork Raises €1.5 Million
French-based HR-Tech startup Popwork recently raised €1.5 million in a seed round led by Evolem, the financial services provider and investor headquartered in Lyon, alongside experts in the tech and management fields in France, including Guillaume Alary, chief revenue officer and co-founder of 360 Learning; Thibault Lanthier, co-founder of digital healthcare platform Mon Docteur; and management expert and consultant Ludovic Girodon. Popwork will use the fresh capital to strengthen its team and make further investments into the development of its solution.
Founded in 2020 by Quentin Demeestère, who is also the company’s CEO, Popwork offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) products to support managers and their teams on 1:1 meetings, feedback, and objectives and key results (OKRs). The system provides companies with a real-time dashboard containing insights on the mood, workload, and management practices of its employees aimed at building a positive and efficient management culture.
With 200 clients mostly based in France, Popwork has plans to expand its presence in European countries and the US in the near future.
Spiral from Seattle Secures $1.25 Million
In a new funding round, Seattle startup Spiral secured $1.25 million to boost development of its AI-powered software that scours and analyzes customer feedback, adding to the company’s $2.4 million draw in 2019. Funders in the latest round include early-stage venture capital firm Trilogy Equity Partners, pre-seed investor Techstars, Community Access Fund, angel investor Kevin Mahaffey, and venture investor AVG/Triphammer Ventures.
Spiral pitches AI software that scans multiple channels of customer feedback, enabling companies to resolve bugs or other issues detected by customers. It also sells its tech to medium- and large-sized companies in the banking, fintech, connected devices, and insurance industries.
Founded in 2018, the seven-person startup hopes to add to its engineering and sales teams to reach a total targeted headcount of at least 12 by the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Mexico’s ID Verification Startup Trully Obtains $4.1 Million
Trully, a Mexican-based identity verification startup focused on digital fraud prevention, has obtained $4.1 million in a seed round led by Costanoa Ventures, the early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Also participating in the round were angel investors such as Pablo Viguera, co-founder and CEO of Belvo, the Spanish open finance API platform provider; and Juan Pablo Ortega, CEO of payments software firm Yuno and co-founder of technology company Rappi.
Trully will use the fresh capital infusion to improve its technology and strengthen operations in Mexico, where it will be recruiting talent in engineering and development. The company developed its software to improve the authentication of Know Your Customer (KYC) systems in preventing identity theft and financial fraud through facial recognition, using machine learning (ML) to obtain more accurate data.
Trully’s solution is currently in the testing phase at multiple fintech and e-commerce startups.
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.
