Velaris has raised £4.1 million seed funding to launch an AI-driven ‘customer success’ platform around Europe.
Headquartered in London with bases in Madrid and Sri Lanka, Velaris has a distributed team of 20 staff.
The startup told BusinessCloud it aims to double its workforce in the next 18 months.
The funding round was led by Octopus Ventures and included Zaka and Fintech 365. It will be used to build a machine learning layer to Velaris’ platform, which enables B2B tech companies to wholly understand their customers, deepen the relationship, and retain and expand their business with them through data-driven decisions.
“We are a company with global ambitions and are not solely focused on the UK. We will target the UK and the rest of the European countries in the next 18 months. We are aiming at growing 5X in that period,” the company told us.
“The UK is Europe’s leading tech hub. It presents many opportunities, such as a large experienced pool of talent, business development and funding. It is also a great bridge to the US.”
Velaris focuses on a frictionless user experience to encourage the use of customer experience data that will ultimately contribute to running a better company. This includes flexible reporting that incorporates intelligence with multiple data streams such as product, revenue and performance within the dashboard.
Conor Scanlan, investor at Octopus Ventures, commented: “Octopus Ventures backs the people and ideas that are changing the world, and Velaris is exactly that.
“The brilliant people who make up the Velaris team… are already making them a leader. The addition of machine-led intelligence will alter the customer success space entirely, not to mention the tech businesses they’re supporting.
“We were impressed by the team’s ability to build such a powerful product in under a year and are delighted to be a part of this holistic and data-driven step change.”
Co-founder José Fernández-Castaño added: “Understanding this economic landscape, customer success teams are uniquely positioned to help their companies weather the downturn through retention and expansion of existing revenues.
“We’re thrilled to now enable CS teams with a truly innovative and game-changing solution. With Octopus Ventures’ belief in Velaris, we’re able to democratise customer experience data and empower CS teams to have a greater impact across the company.”