Ukrainian People.ai raises $100M and becomes unicorn
Ukrainian startup People.ai has raised $100 million of investment in a new round and received a valuation of $1.1 billion. Thus, it became a unicorn. This was reported to AIN.UA by Oleg Rogynskyy, founder and CEO of People.ai. In 2019, People.ai was valued at $400 million.
The round was co-led by Akkadian Ventures and Mubadala Investment Co., with participation from existing investors including ICONIQ Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
“On rare occasions, we come across a company that will forever change how we work,” said Abdulla AlBanna of Mubadala Capital’s US venture business. “People.ai stands above the competition in its ability to transform people’s processes across an entire organization. By applying breakthrough AI technology to vast data sets, People.ai is significantly improving efficiencies of enterprise processes, increasing productivity and performance across workflows. We’re proud to co-lead this investment in People.ai as they deliver on a vision to fundamentally change the next era of innovation in B2B software.”
“B2B sales is changing, as companies increasingly look to operationalize all revenue-impacting functions and drive customer engagements based on data-driven insights instead of hunches and instinct. Our AI technology harnesses business activity like email, calendar, and video conferencing data, allowing sales managers to become data-driven coaches, and reps to spend more time on the right sales pursuits. This new funding will ensure that People.ai continues to lead the industry with the world’s best account and opportunity management functionality,” commented Oleg Rogynskyy, founder and CEO of People.ai.
About People.ai
People.ai is a product company with offices in Kyiv and San Francisco, working in the ‘AI for sales’ niche – a decision support system based on data from CRM. The investment will help accelerate growth, enter new areas and new markets.
The People.ai software allows to collect and analyze employee calendars, calls, and emails, helping companies improve their performance. For example, it helps to understand the maximum number of clients a sales manager can handle simultaneously. At the same time, employees’ privacy does not suffer, the company says.
Customers, revenue, and ambitions to go IPO
Today People.ai’s clients include AppDynamics, DataRobot, Ivanti, Okta, Zoom, and others. According to the startup, the company’s revenue is growing every year, and its partnership with Zoom has tripled during the pandemic.
Over the past year, People.ai has shown such growth:
- 260% increased customer growth
- obtained 49 patents with 40+ more pending
- acquired several startups, including Closeplan and Hero Research
- Robin Matlock, former VMWare CMO, joined the Board of Directors
In comments to Bloomberg, Rogynskyy said that People.ai generates revenue in the “tens of millions,” but the company is still not profitable. He also said that he hopes to take People.ai to an IPO one day.
People.ai currently has 240 employees. In addition to its headquarters in Redwood City and a development office in Kyiv, the startup also has employees in Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and other cities in Ukraine.