(Image source: Glia website.)

Glia (New York), a provider of digital customer service solutions to the insurance and financial services industries, has raised $78 million in Series C funding, bringing its total fundraising to $107 million. The current round was led by existing investor Insight Partners (New York). Glia was advised in the transaction by Cooley LLP (Palo Alto, Calif.).

“The $78 million in Series C funding that we have raised will position us to continue to meet the accelerating demand for insurance companies across the globe to provide digital customer service,” comments Dan Michaeli, CEO and co-founder, Glia. “Through leveraging our platform, insurers are able to meet customers where they are and communicate with them however they prefer, enabling businesses to increase leads and online conversions while making the overall servicing process easier and more convenient. We look forward to keeping up our significant momentum and helping the insurance industry take a digital-first approach to customer service.”

Glia reports that it grew by more than 150 percent in 2020 as a result of the pandemic compelling businesses to rethink how they guide and connect with customers in a digital world. The company says the investment will allow it to meet the mounting demand for digital customer service. Glia plans to expand every department across its organization, with a focus on product development. The company says it is also exploring strategic acquisitions.

“We are proud to expand our investment in Glia as the company continues to lead the evolution of digital customer service for enterprises globally,” comments Lonne Jaffe, managing director, Insight Partners. “Glia’s platform including, CoBrowsing, video chat, and in-app messaging, provides the modern technology necessary for businesses to meet customers in their digital journeys and communicate through the customer’s channel of choice. With this capital, the company will continue to scale and keep up with skyrocketing demand.”

Digital Cloud-First Approach

Don Brown, a pioneer in the customer service space, also invested in Glia’s Series C round. Brown was the founder and CEO of Interactive Intelligence, acquired by Genesys (Daly City, Calif.) in 2016 for $1.4 billion. “Many companies are still focused on moving antiquated, on-premises telephony systems to cloud contact centers that essentially offer the same functionality,” Brown comments. “Instead, businesses can leapfrog this process and move directly to a digital-first cloud approach by partnering with Glia. If I were to build Interactive Intelligence for today’s contact center, I would take Glia’s approach.”

“Just as Zoom [San Jose, Calif.] has transformed the way consumers communicate with colleagues, family, and friends, digital customer service is changing the way businesses support and engage with customers. This is an area that has gone mainstream, as evidenced by Facebook’s [Menlo Park, Calif.] recent billion-dollar acquisition of Kustomer,” adds Glia’s Michaeli. “This capital will allow us to maintain our current momentum, helping businesses across the globe adopt the digital-first approach to customer service necessary to compete and build customer loyalty.”

Interactive Intelligence Offers Cloud Services for Customer Engagement, Communication, Collaboration