Interactions, a provider of speech and natural language technology for customer care, has completed a $56 million funding round led by Revolution Growth, NewSpring Capital, and Comcast Ventures. This new investment will fuel rapid expansion of the company to meet heightened demand and further development in artificial intelligence technology.
In total, Interactions has raised $167 million.
"We are extremely pleased to have the backing and influence of Revolution Growth, NewSpring Capital, and Comcast Ventures to continue to propel us forward," said Mike Iacobucci, CEO of Interactions, in a statement. "Interactions is experiencing widespread, growing demand for its speech and natural language offerings. In order to meet this demand, we're making strategic investments to advance our core artificial intelligence technology, further global expansion efforts and strengthen the company's marketing and sales efforts."
In December 2014, for example, Interactions acquired AT&T's Watson speech technology. Earlier this year, it partnered with Arise Virtual Solutions, a provider of work-from-home agent business process outsourcing (BPO) services, to expand the delivery of conversational virtual assistant solutions for customer care.
"Interactions is leveraging and developing artificial intelligence technology that disrupts the existing multi-billion-dollar customer care industry," said Ted Leonsis, Revolution Growth co-founder and partner, in a statement. "They are transforming the way businesses interact with their customers by providing a seamless experience that eliminates inefficiencies to better service the needs of customers."
"Customer care is increasingly becoming a point of competitive differentiation, rather than a cost of doing business," said Andrew Cleland, managing director of Comcast Ventures, in a statement. "Through Interactions exclusive combination of automated natural language understanding, AI, and human-assisted understanding, the company surpasses its rivals and demonstrates unparalleled consumer understanding."