Voiceflow, a startup developing a no-code platform for building conversational AI experiences, announced today it has raised $15 million in a funding round led by OpenView. This latest tranche brings Voiceflow's total raised to $35 million and values the company at $105 million post-money.
The demand for conversational AI agents like chatbots has skyrocketed in recent months, especially after the launch and success of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Voiceflow's timing for this funding round aligns with this rising interest in conversational AI. According to the company's CEO Braden Ream, signups and usage on their platform have roughly doubled since ChatGPT's release in November.
Founded in 2019, Voiceflow provides a collaborative design platform for teams to build custom AI agents for uses like customer support automation. The Toronto-based startup aims to be the "Figma for voice," enabling anyone to create conversational experiences by mixing and matching different AI models and technologies.
The platform's flexibility is evident as Ream asserts, "Voiceflow allows for integration with any existing natural language understanding platform or technology stack." This versatility allows businesses to elevate their design and collaboration endeavors sans the need for drastic technology shifts or vendor transitions.
It facilitates teams in building AI agents using powerful large language models, such as the renowned GPT-4 by OpenAI and Claude by Anthropic. What sets Voiceflow apart is its capability to foster design, testing, and deployment of AI agents devoid of any commitment to a single model or technology. Teams are empowered to harness varied models, including speech recognition ones, to curate rich conversational AI experiences.
Although Voiceflow finds itself amid intense competition with giants like Google's Dialogflow, IBM Watson, and AWS Lex, its robust customer portfolio speaks volumes. Their clientele already encompasses titans like Amazon, JP Morgan, State Farm, and even an undisclosed government agency, translating to approximately 130,000 platform users.
The company says the new funding will be used to double down on product innovation, including developing a new AI builder powered by large language models. Voiceflow believes its collaborative, flexible approach focused on enterprise use cases gives it an edge.