AI agents startup Parloa has raised $120m in a Series C round, bringing the company’s valuation to $1bn and securing its place as Germany’s 28th unicorn.
Parloa was the second German startup to hit unicorn status on Tuesday; this morning, drones startup Quantum Systems announced its $160m Series C, making it one of the few startups in the defence field to hit a $1bn valuation.
The round was led by Durable Capital Partners LP, Altimeter Capital and General Catalyst with participation from EQT Ventures, RPT Capital, Senovo and Mosaic Ventures.
It brings the startup’s total funding to €214m.
Founded in 2018 by Malte Kosub and Stefan Ostwald in Berlin, Parloa offers enterprises AI customer support agents to automate and improve their customer service operations.
AI “agents” — apps using large language models (LLMs) to automate complex tasks without a human in the loop — are the latest buzzy category in VC land, with European startups in this sector having raised €827m in Q1 of this year alone, according to Sifted data.
Parloa is also capitalising on the broader trend of automated customer service. Recent research from Gartner suggests agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of customer service issues without human oversight by 2029.
Parloa says its AI agents mimic natural human conversation flows, and have the ability to learn and improve with every interaction they have.
“The way people interact with businesses is changing forever,” said Malte Kosub, CEO and co-founder of Parloa in a press release.
“Our customers are building 1:1 relationships between AI agents and their customers with every interaction to deepen loyalty, realise new revenue streams, and create highly personalised experiences.”
Parloa has already secured high profile customers such as insurance giant Swiss Life and sports retailer Decathlon.
The company opened an office in New York last year, and plans to use the fresh funding to expand its operations across North America and Europe.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/parloa-hits-unicorn-status/
