Barcelona-based startup Voz.io has closed a $150,000 seed round from Kima Ventures. Summann Gandham, co-founder and CEO of Voz.io, says the funding round will “allow us to vigorously pursue business development and user acquisition strategies.” At the same time they’ve launched what they describe as a “scalable browser-based call center & CRM solution” aimed at SMEs. The advantage? As it’s all via a browser, there’s no investment, training or hardware needed to set it up. The secret of course is the employment of the fast-growing WebRTC technologies which are currently pointing a collective gun at the heads of the major voice carriers.
Voz.io, founded last September by Gandham and Sergi Almar, allows companies to provide phone support in more than 40 countries via their platform which features CRM integration. That means customer service agents get a full update about the customer via their browser, where audio and video support is built in. It features intelligent call routing, inbound and outbound call recording, call monitoring, analytics, KPIs and real-time reporting.
The business is based on a pay per month per agent model which does not use third-party voice APIs (such as Twilio, Tropo, Plivo etc). Instead they are connected with 20 carriers worldwide with direct termination, which reduces costs, zero charges on incoming calls to its users.
This investment is part of the “Kima15” promise recently launched by Kima ventures to fund startups in 15 days. Israel-based Jeremie Berrebi and France-based serial entrepreneur Xavier Niel are founders.
Kima says it plans to make more than 100 seed investments in the next 12 months, and, they say, at least 50 of those will be using the fixed Kima15 offer.
The firm has gained a reputation for a blistering pace of deals, making an average of two new investments every week, making it one of the most active angel investors in the world.
Mike Butcher (M.B.E.), formerly Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder of TheEuropas.com (Top 100 listing of European startups); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Startup Coalition. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.