Voice AI company Skit raises $23 mn in Series B led by WestBridge Capital

This follows a Series A round last May, led by Exfinity Ventures and Kalaari Capital, AngelList. The latest funding brings the startup's total raise to $30 million

Voice AI company Skit, formerly known as Vernacular.ai, has secured $23 million as part of its Series B funding, led by WestBridge Capital with participation from Kalaari Capital and Exfinity Ventures, Angelist syndicate led by Aaryaman Vir Shah from Prophetic Ventures and Letsventure syndicate led by Sense AI.

The capital will be used for sales and marketing, building delivery capabilities, R&D to speed up innovation and further enhance the company’s products while expanding globally.

“The fresh capital will help enhance Skit’s voice technology, developing personalized solutions while making strategic headway in global markets, like the US. In India, the capital will be used in sales & marketing - we have had win ratios of 100 per cent so we want to capture the market. We want our product to be the best in the segment and we want to build the technology further. In Southeast Asia and the US we are investing in expansion,” Sourabh Gupta, CEO and co-founder, Skit.

The fundraising follows a Series A round last May, led by Exfinity Ventures and Kalaari Capital, AngelList, with IAN Fund and LetsVenture also participating. The latest funding brings the startup’s total raise to $30 million.

The company plans to double down and scale operations in both Indian and global markets. Since the last fundraise, Skit has been able to increase its revenue and customer growth by over 4x building a strong partner network across industries such as banking, insurance, ecommerce, consumer durables, travel & logistics, among others.

According to Meticulous Market Research, the voice and speech recognition market is expected to grow at a 17.2 percent CAGR to reach $26.8 billion by 2025. The global contact center market size is expected to grow steadily and reach a value of $496 billion by 2027. “To address this sizable growth, we at Skit are using voice bot innovation and our market observations to personalize caller experiences at customer contact centers, and deliver upto 50 per cent cost reduction and superior customer experience. Skit will potentially address the over $300 billion voice customer service market globally with its AI-based voice automation platform,” said Gupta.

The company has strengthened its workforce by over 6x to prepare for future growth.

“Skit’s success in helping India’s largest companies, positions them well to enter the US market where there is a massive need for voice AI solutions,” stated Sashi Reddi, Venture Advisor to Westbridge Capital.