Dallas—AmplifAI Solutions, which makes artificial intelligence-enabled software for call center operations, has raised $3.9 million.
Investors in the funding round were Dallas-based Naya Ventures, and LiveOak Venture Partners and Capital Factory, both in Austin.
AmplifAI has developed software that uses machine learning algorithms to analyze behaviors of top-performing employees in order to create training programs for employees across the payroll. Now, the company plans to use the funding to further develop its technology and to expand both its customer base and what it offers those customers, which include companies such as Home Depot and AT&T, according to Sean Minter, founder and CEO
Focusing on big corporations as customers is important, he says. “Once you get in, it’s hard to be displaced,” he explains. “In small businesses, there is more churn.”
There are about 2.3 million contact center employees in the $1 billion U.S. market, Minter says. In addition to customers in industries such as retail, telecom, and financial services, he says AmplifAI is now seeking to apply its technologies in the healthcare market. “We want to use AI to recruit and improve people, not replace them,” he says.
I first wrote about AmplifAI (and another call center tech company, Houston-based EthosIQ) in mid-2017, looking at how seemingly old-tech call centers were incorporating machine learning and data analytics in their operations.
AmplifAI had been bootstrapped until this round of funding, Minter says. But he says the company took outside funding in order to accelerate its pace of acquiring customer.
Minter says one of the interesting things AmplifAI has learned as it continues to develop its software is the need to more finely tune the evaluation of an employee’s performance. “The calls they are taking in September when you roll out a new product is different from July support issues,” he says. “A high performer on support may not be on new products.”
So, the startup has created personas of the highest-performing employees across various time frames, to truly suss out employees’ strengths and weaknesses across a myriad of functions.
Another product AmplifAI is working on is what Minter calls “do-it-yourself learning,” which he says can be personalized to each employee based on the data the software has analyzed on their performance. “Each employee can take control of their performance,” he says.
