Conversica
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Artificial Intelligence Intelligent Virtual Assistant Enterprise software
Available inMultilingual
FoundedBellingham, Washington, United States (2007)
Headquarters
San Mateo, California
,
United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Ben Brigham, Senior Vice President
Key peopleJim Kaskade, CEO[1]
ProductsConversica AI Assistants
Employees<200
URLwww.conversica.com
RegistrationRequired
Users>2000 companies
Current statusActive

Conversica is a US-based cloud software technology company, headquartered in San Mateo, California, that provides two-way AI-driven conversational software and a suite of Intelligent Virtual Assistants for businesses to engage customers via email, chat and SMS.[2]

History

2007: The company was founded by Ben Brigham in Bellingham, Washington, originally as AutoFerret.com. The company's initial product was a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) targeted at automotive dealerships. This soon expanded to lead generation, and then lead validation and qualification. The AI for which Conversica is known today was born out of a need to follow-up on and filter out low-quality leads, and in time it was clear that this was where the real value of the product lay. The focus of the company shifted toward this automated lead engagement technology.

2010: The company started commercially selling AVA, the first Automated Virtual Assistant for sales, and the company name is changed to AVA.ai. Early customers for AVA were automotive dealerships. As the company moved away from generating leads themselves, and providing the CRM themselves, it became necessary to integrate with existing CRM and Marketing Automation platforms, such as DealerSocket, VinSolutions and Salesforce.

2013: The company raised $16m Series A funding,[3] led by Kennet Partners, and named Mark Bradley as CEO. It also moved its headquarters from Bellingham, Washington to Foster City, California.

2014: The company changed its name from AVA.ai to Conversica.[4]

2015: Alex Terry joined Conversica as its CEO.[5] The business expanded to include customers in additional verticals, including technology, education, and financial services.

2016: The company raised $34m Series B funding,[6] led by Providence Strategic Growth.

2017: Conversica expanded its intelligent automation platform and IVAs to support additional communication channels (e-mail and SMS text messaging) and communication languages. Conversica also opened a new technology center in Seattle, Washington to expand its AI and machine learning capabilities.[7]

2018: The company raised $31m Series C funding,[8][2][9] led by Providence Strategic Growth. Conversica also acquired Intelligens.ai, providing a regional presence in Latin America with an office in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile.[10] The company launched an AI-powered Admissions Assistant for Higher Education industry.[11]

2019: Conversica was selected by Fast Company magazine as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative AI Companies in the World,[12] and was named Marketo's Technology Partner of the Year,.[13][14] The company officially expanded into the EMEA region with the opening of a London office.[15] As of August 2019, Conversica has over 50 different integrations with third parties. In October Conversica won three awards at the fourth annual Global Annual Achievement Awards for Artificial Intelligence.[16] Also that month, Alex Terry stepped down from his role as CEO and was replaced by Jim Kaskade.[1]

2020: As part of Conversica's response to COVID-19, they optimized the business to become profitable in both 2Q20 and 3Q20, before reinvesting in 4Q20. The company transitioned both international operations in EMEA and LATAM to an indirect model with partners (LeadFabric and Nectia Cloud Solutions respectively), and moved a portion of its US-based employees to near-shore centers in Mexico and Brazil, effectively downsizing the company from 250 to 200. Conversica's reseller partner, Nectia, is a major Latin American affiliate and Chile's number one Salesforce partner, and, as part of the partnership, Nectia devoted capital to a brand new company segment, Predict-IA, dedicated to web-based artificial intelligent solutions. Predict-IA was able to immediately service all LATAM opportunities and clients with Conversica's AI Assistants with end-to-end services (marketing, sales, professional services, customer success, and technical support).[17]. Conversica's reseller partner, Leadfabric, has offices in Belgium, Amsterdam, Paris, UK, Taiwan, and Romania. [18]

Technology

Conversica's Revenue Digital Assistants™ are AI assistants who engage with leads, prospects, customers, employees and other persons of interest (Contacts) in a two-way human-like manner, via email, SMS text, and website chat, in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. The RDAs are built on an Intelligent Automation platform that leverages natural language understanding, natural language processing, natural language generation, deep learning and machine learning. The Assistants are generally deployed alongside sales and marketing, customer success, account management and higher education admissions teams, as part of an augmented workforce.[19] The Intelligent Automation platform integrates with over 50 external systems, including CRM, Marketing Automation, and other systems of record. A partial list of integration partners includes: Salesforce, Marketo, Oracle, HubSpot, DealerSocket, Reynolds & Reynolds, CDK Global, VinSolutions and many more.

References

  1. 1 2 "Conversica Names Jim Kaskade as Chief Executive Officer | MarTech Advisor". Archived from the original on 2019-11-04. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
  2. 1 2 "Conversica, which uses AI to replicate sales agents, raises $31M, now valued around $300M". 30 October 2018.
  3. ↑ "Kennet Partners announces $16 Million investment in AVA.ai and names Mark A. Bradley as CEO". Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  4. ↑ "AVA.ai Announces Name Change to Conversica | Sales AI Assistants | AI Assistants for Business | Conversica". www.conversica.com. 2014-09-05. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  5. ↑ "Conversica Names SaaS Industry Veteran Alex Terry as New CEO | Sales AI Assistants | AI Assistants for Business | Conversica". www.conversica.com. 2015-07-27. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  6. ↑ "Conversica lands $34 million Series B to build intelligent sales assistants". TechCrunch. 14 December 2016. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  7. ↑ "Conversica's new Seattle office cements city's status as AI and machine learning hotbed". GeekWire. 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  8. ↑ "Conversica Raises $31 Million in Series C Funding to Fuel Expansion of Conversational AI for Business". www.bloomberg.com. 2018-10-30. Archived from the original on 2019-10-14. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  9. ↑ "Conversica Raises $31 Million in Series C Funding Round". www.martechadvisor.com. Archived from the original on 2019-09-20. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  10. ↑ Starr, Rob (February 4, 2018). "Conversica Acquires Intelligens.ai to Give Small Business a Leg Up on AI Conversations".
  11. ↑ "Conversica Launches Industry's First AI-Powered Admissions Assistant for Higher Education | Sales AI Assistants | AI Assistants for Business | Conversica". www.conversica.com. 2018-10-03. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  12. ↑ "The World's Most Innovative Companies 2019: Artificial Intelligence Honorees". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
  13. ↑ "Conversica Named Technology Partner of the Year by Marketo". MarketWatch.
  14. ↑ "Flexible Hourly Assistance". Retrieved 19 August 2023.
  15. ↑ "Conversica Opens Office in London to Expand European Presence | Sales AI Assistants | AI Assistants for Business | Conversica". Sales AI | Leading AI Assistants for Business | Conversica. April 25, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Nominations".
  17. ↑ "Customer Support in Latin America by Partnering with Nectia Cloud Solutions". GlobeNewswire (Press release). 4 May 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-05-22. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  18. ↑ "Conversica Announces a Strategic European Reseller Partnership with LeadFabric". GlobeNewswire (Press release). 6 May 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-05-13. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  19. ↑ "Sales AI Assistant | Sales AI Assistants | AI Assistants for Business | Conversica". www.conversica.com. 11 August 2019.
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