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Adams Street’s Growth Equity Team is proud to announce that we’ve invested in the Series C of Aircall, a cloud-based voice ecosystem that is democratizing call center software so that all companies – from SMBs to enterprise – can provide data-enriched customer service and sales interactions.

Addressing a Massive Opportunity

Over the past 20 years, almost all critical business tools have undergone massive disruption from next-gen vendors looking to provide an improved user experience and a modern, SaaS-based architecture: Slack for messaging, Dropbox for file-sharing, and AWS for infrastructure. While these companies have found incredible success re-inventing critical workflow tools, the phone system and broader call center ecosystem has largely been left in the dark ages. Companies across all verticals rely on phones to sell to new customers and support existing ones, yet the solutions available (VoIP phone systems or contact center software) do not provide the functionality and flexibility they need and demand today. First, VoIP phone systems (enabling calling over the internet) are siloed solutions that fail to provide users with critical caller context, such as: who the caller is, what products the caller owns, and any prior interactions the caller has had with the company. Furthermore, they lack analytics and collaborative capabilities that drive efficiencies and improve the customer experience. Second, existing call center software solutions are built with legacy architectures and require an arduous implementation process. Many of these solutions are on-prem, built only for enterprise, only compatible with analog phones, and only accessible on a desktop. In a world where customers expect high-touch, personalized treatment, businesses need a solution that can streamline inbound and outbound calling efforts while tapping into the wealth of contextual data found in other internal systems.

“We help businesses unlock the power of voice so they can focus on closing deals and delighting customers.”

Olivier Pailhes, Co-founder and CEO, and Jonathan Anguelov, Co-founder and COO

Providing Mission-critical Software

It is no secret that customer expectations have dramatically increased in recent years. Many companies today live and die by their customer experience as customers expect a highly personalized interaction every time they engage with a company. Without a doubt, there has been a general move towards text-based communication and companies are increasingly communicating with their customers through chatbots and messenger systems. While these are certainly important customer engagement channels, we believe that many customers are still looking for the efficient and good ol’ fashioned personal experience that only speaking to a real person can deliver. But investing in a simple phone system isn’t enough. Companies must invest in a phone system that is intuitive, flexible, and able to deeply integrate into all customer-facing communication tools and data sources so that they can provide a personalized experience for every customer interaction.

Companies must invest in a phone system that is intuitive, flexible, and able to deeply integrate into all customer-facing communication tools and data sources so that they can provide a personalized experience for every customer interaction.

Creating an Extraordinary Experience

We believe that Aircall has built a product that is drastically better than anything else in the market. With its integration-first approach, modern design, and cloud-based delivery model, Aircall has democratized call center software so that even the smallest companies in the world can make every customer interaction count. The product is self-service and can be deployed within minutes without any hardware. Instead of using traditional analog phones, Aircall combines web-based calling capabilities with advanced call center features to be a one-stop-shop for sales and customer support teams. The company has built a voice ecosystem of 60+ business applications that, with a single mouse click, can integrate with the platform to provide rich context to every phone call – ultimately creating a positive, customized experience for the caller. Importantly, after each call, core systems of record are updated ensuring all individuals across the organization have the latest information. Finally, the platform offers out-of-the-box analytics, such as call wait time, call volume, missed call rate, and average call time, to improve customer service performance.

Adams Street could not be more excited to partner with Oli (CEO and co-founder) and the Aircall team as they continue on their mission to build an integrated voice ecosystem. We congratulate them on a successful Series C!


Important Considerations: This information (the “Paper”) is provided for educational purposes only and is not investment advice or an offer or sale of any security or investment product or investment advice. Offerings are made only pursuant to a private offering memorandum containing important information. Statements in this Paper are made as of the date of this Paper unless stated otherwise, and there is no implication that the information contained herein is correct as of any time subsequent to such date. All information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable and current, but accuracy cannot be guaranteed. References herein to Adams Street Partners’ portfolio companies are not to be considered a recommendation or solicitation for any such company. Projections or forward-looking statements contained in the Paper are only estimates of future results or events that are based upon assumptions made at the time such projections or statements were developed or made; actual results may be significantly different from the projections. Also, general economic factors, which are not predictable, can have a material impact on the reliability of projections or forward-looking statements.