WestBridge leads Series B for India voice AI start-up
WestBridge Capital has led a $23 million Series B round for India’s Skit, a voice recognition artificial intelligence (AI) supplier for the call center industry.
Kalaari Capital, Exfinity Ventures, AngelList, LetsVenture, and Sense AI also participated, as did Aaryaman Vir Shah, co-founder of Prophetic Ventures. It follows an approximately $5 million Series A last year led by Exfinity, Kalaari, and AngelList. Skit claims to have increased its revenue and customer base by 4x between these two rounds while growing the size of its team sixfold.
"This investment comes when we are making strategic inroads into the US and Southeast Asian markets. Clients and investors alike have recognized the uniqueness and superiority of our product and continue to show confidence in our growth path,” Sourabh Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Skit, said in a statement.
“The global contact center market size is expected to grow steadily and reach a value of $496 billion by 2027. To address this sizable growth, we at Skit are using voice bot innovation and our market observations to personalize caller experiences at customer contact centers and deliver up to 50% cost reduction and superior customer experience.
Voice AI for human resources automation and customer service applications is an active niche in India, with recent activity including a $78 million Series C last month for Yellow.ai, a chatbot specialist also pursuing an international expansion.
Chennai-based Uniphore, which raised a $51 million Series C in 2019, has claimed to have the only platform able to listen and act on specific dialects, detect and analyze customer emotion, and then predict true intent, all in real-time.
Skit’s core development is a vernacular voice assistant said to be capable of responding to customers in at least 16 languages and replicate lifelike conversations in more than 160 dialects. Clients span financial services, food and beverage, e-commerce, automotive, travel, and logistics. They include Axis Bank, broadcaster Hathway, and restaurant chain Barbeque Nation.
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