Bengaluru-based cloud telephony startup Exotel Techcom Pvt Ltd recently raised Rs 40 crore (USD 5.5 Mn) funding round led by venture capital firm A91 Partners.
According to an official statement, Exotel plans to use these funds to capitalise on the enterprise digital adoption wave in the aftermath of the pandemic and invest in new-age technologies to power chatbots, voice translation services, caller sentiment analysis, automatic call quality assessment, and more.
Speaking about the investment, Gautam Shewakramani, Investor-Board Member, Exotel representing Mumbai Angels shareholders said, “Since our investment in 2012, Exotel has shown remarkable growth in a sustainable and capital efficient manner. We are thrilled to have A91 partner with the company for its next stage of growth.”
Exotel was launched in 2011 by Shivakumar Ganesan, who teamed up with Ishwar Sridharan, Siddharth Ramesh and Vijay Sharma to start the venture. In early 2012, it raised seed funding from Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures.
“The pandemic has changed the way companies conduct business. People are now increasingly moving away from an office setup. This has made digital transformation and migration to the cloud a priority. Exotel has helped enterprises migrate to cloud-based customer communication and build personalized and timely customer engagement across customer support, marketing, operations and sales,” stated Ganesan.
Exotel offers a number to a company on which they can receive and make calls and SMSes — all at the same time, without having to invest in any infrastructure. The product is a dashboard with sales tools, marketing tools, customer support tools, business intelligence, analytics etc.
The startup plans to deploy the funds raised to accelerate product development and enter new markets overseas. According to sources, they are looking at the growing revenue contribution from markets such as Southeast Asia to plot its expansion in the coming years.
“Exotel through its cloud technologies has helped more than 4,000+ customers across the Asia-Pacific. It is very rewarding to see Exotel’s journey from seed round investment to exit to our Investors,” added Nandini Mansinghka, Co-promoter and CEO, Mumbai Angels Network.