(Image credit: Gerd Altmann.)
Ushur has extended its Series B investment by securing another $5 million in funding. Through the added investment, the company now has Aflac Ventures (Columbus, Ga.) and Iron Pillar (Mumbai) as partners in helping the provider of intelligent automation for enterprise customer engagement to accelerate its customer and talent acquisition. The extension comes three months after an oversubscribed initial Series B round led by Third Point Ventures, 8VC and Pentland Ventures that raised $25 million.
Simha Sadasiva, CEO, Ushur.
Ushur says its partnership with Iron Pillar enables it to tap into that company’s fast-growing international network in Europe and emerging markets and gives us access to customers, partners and talent pool.
“Ushur is one of a small handful of innovative startups actually driving innovation and transformation in the insurance sector,” comments Mohanjit Jolly, Partner, Iron Pillar. “They not only have the conversational AI that can streamline customer interactions, but can deliver it in a no-code platform for rapid deployment. That combination of no-code and proven AI models is what’s behind their traction, and we’re looking forward to helping them expand their team and global customer base to meet the clear demand.”
Truly Omnichannel Customer Experience
“Ushur’s ability to deliver on a truly omnichannel customer experience will make a tremendous impact across the entire industry: improving member satisfaction, opening new markets for providers and helping agents and brokers gain efficiency,” comments Nadeem Khan, President, Aflac Global Ventures.
Nadeem Khan, President, Aflac Corporate Ventures.
Ushur’s extension to its Series B round serves two key goals, according to Simha Sadasiva, CEO, Ushur: growing its go-to-market function to better serve its customers and gaining strategic partners for its target markets.
“When we first announced our Series B, I wrote in a blog post that we’ve heard the signal from the market loud and clear: high-contact businesses, such as insurance providers, are looking to digitally transform their customer engagement, across all channels, keeping costs low while raising NPS scores,” Sadasiva comments. “If you can help achieve one or two of these metrics, it is a win. If you can help them achieve all three, that’s a big deal.”
In addition to expanding its leadership team, Ushur plans to invest heavily in R&D, engineering and customer success teams. “Our go-to-market teams will continue to grow rapidly along with our partner network, meeting our goal to be where our customers are, no matter where they are in the world,” says Sadasiva.
Ken Lynch, Head of Information Services, Irish Life.
Key Advisor
“In Aflac Ventures, Ushur has gained not only a strategic partner, but a key advisor as we continue to make deep inroads into the world of insurance, Sadasiva continues. “It is well established now that intelligent automation has a transformational impact on traditional insurers. For instance, in the words of our customer, Irish Life, their first Ushur project made them rethink their entire approach to customer engagement.”
“The results we got were phenomenal, and we hadn’t written a line of code,” comments Ken Lynch, Head of Information Services, Irish Life (Dublin). “We’d never seen anyone who could do that. From our standpoint, Ushur were the only ones out there truly doing something different.”